Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1893 — A Sad but Instructive Picture. [ARTICLE]

A Sad but Instructive Picture.

The eminent Mark Lane Express, of London, the best informed paper in England regarding agricultural interests, makes a comparison. It says: “The disaster to British agriculture is more widespread in its ruin and heart-rending effects than would be the loss of at least twenty ships like the Victoria, and yet it goes on without a word of sympathy from Parliament or the slightest attempt to throw out a legislative life-rbuoy. Let those who doubt our assertion just consider a few facts. The deficiency from an active crop of hay in England alono in the two years 1891-92 was no less than £15,000,000 sterling, while if our crop this year is two-thirds less than an average one, the loss (at £4 per ton, on which the above is computed) will be over £20,000,000. If we divide this by two we have nearly £18,000.000, or enough to purchase eighteen such vessels as the one whose loss the whole nation is deploring, and this gigantic loss is from one crop alone. This year all our crops are falling us more or less, and the total loss of income to the agriculturists of this country, from all these sources, cannot be tar short of £2 per acre; and as there are over 24,000,000 acres under cultivation in England—where the disaster of the year is more felt—it follows that the losses from this source alone cannot be far short of £50,000,000, the value of fifty fully-equipped iron-clads."