CHAPTER II.

Markets, resources in Soil and Sub-soil-Mines and Agriculture-Surplus of Each-Affected by Markets-Taxation must not take Capital-Commerce, Manufactures, Agriculture, index of Resources-Commerce and Manufactures Build and Sustain Towns-Peace and Quiet-No Rivals to Agriculture-Value of Lands depend upon Markets-Local Markets-General Consumption-1st Group, 2d Group, 3d Group, 4th Group, 5th Group, 6th Group-Facilities for Reaching Markets -Two Classes-Highway-Railroads-Canals-Average Highways in Groups-Commercial Routes-Kinds-Miles in Groups-Benefits of Commercial RoutesTowns-Cities-Farms.

MARKETS, AND FACILITIES FOR REACHING.

The resources of a State are in its soil or subsoil, its agriculture and mines, and in intelligent labor to develop them.

The wealth is the surplus products of the one and the gross products of the other.

This surplus is increased or diminished by the facilities furnished for a cheap and easy transit of the products whereby profits accumulate in the hands of the producers. The proximity of markets stimulates production, and accumulates profits, which accumulation is the measure of a people's capacity to bear taxation,

No system of taxation can long survive, which not only absorbs profits, but trenches upon capital, for when it reaches that point repudiation in some form, or ruin is sure to follow.

The condition of its agriculture, manufactures and commerce, is an index to the prosperity of a State or nation. If its agriculture be unsatisfactory, its manufactures will be feeble, and upon the condition of its agriculture and manufactures depends that of its commerce.

Commerce builds towns, but they are sustained only by successful manufacturing, and a surrounding and vigorous agriculture.

A vigorous agriculture can be maintained only by successful manufacturing centres, easy of access for its surplus products, and commerce assumes proportions of magnitude only when the surplus of the two industries are large and require increased capital and skill in their exchange.

But the three are the offsprings of liberty, order and peace, and these prime conditions must be conserved or their success is not possible. Therefore the rigorous enforcement of those laws which protect the one, enforce the other and preserve the last, so that all industry is sure of the enjoyment of its products, is the most important duty of the government, and its prosperity depends upon the faithful discharge of that duty.

Many have looked upon commerce and manufactures as rivals to agriculture, and that any legislative action which helped to develope either the one or the other, was so much done at the expense of agriculture. The idea is erroneous and hurtful to agriculture, especially so in this State, whose prosperity depends so much upon commerce and manufactures. The distinction between agriculture and manufactures is essentially false.

To bring land into cultivation is a manufacture; no man is more of a manufacturer than the farmer. The transport, sale and purchase of agricultural produce, is trade, perfected in commerce. But this kind of manufactures and commerce being of prime necessity it can dispense a little

more with skill and capital than the others, still they remain in a state of infancy. Yet when these two powerful aids are supplied all become vastly more productive.

There can be no profitable agriculture without profitable manufactures, for commerce and manufactures can alone abundantly provide agriculture. with the two most powerful agents of production which exist, viz., markets and capital.

To form, then, a proper estimate of the value of farm lands and of real estate generally, as well as the prospect of accumulating capital or personal property by all classes, we must consider what is the prospect of markets, that is to say, the sale of agricultural products to a population not contributing to produce them, and the means of communication between the consumer and the producer.

LOCAL MARKETS.

It is to be regretted that ample time and a sufficient clerical force could not be had whereby the vast amount of facts in regard to the detail of manufacturing in the several counties and groups might have been properly digested and tabulated, and these reports will only be perfected when those facts are properly vitalized. The aggregates are tabulated in table D of the appendix.

It may be premised generally that, with the exception of butter and cheese, the population, resident and transient, of the State, consumes more than all the surplus products of its agriculture, and is dependent upon the surrounding States for the balance consumed. A brief description of the market prospects in the different groups may not be inappropriate.

Commencing with the first division or group, New York city, and the city of Brooklyn are the great and absorbing markets of the State as well as of the continent, and they contain all the elements for constantly increasing demand or consumption, because they are successful manufacturing and commercial towns.

It is truly estimated that not less than two millions of people, resident and transient, are fed daily from New York as a common market centre. The examination of its annual consumption of butchers' meat establishes. this fact. Manufacturing is on the increase in all the counties of this group.

In the second group, as far up as White Plains in Westchester county, it may be considered as a suburb of New York city. Peekskill is a large and thriving manufacturing town, and derives much of its importance from its iron establishments. Cold Spring, in Putnam county, is an important iron manufacturing point. Fishkill, Poughkeepsie, and numerous other points in Dutchess county. Hudson, Troy, and numerous other points. along the river and inland upon the railroads or near them are rapidly increasing in population, from the concentration of commercial and manufacturing capital.

In the third group, Nyack, Newburgh, Rondout, Catskill, and Albany, on the Hudson river, Cohoes, on the Mohawk, Schenectady and Amsterdam, are important manufacturing towns. Otsego county has several factories of textile fabrics, which will be increased, and in Ulster, Delaware and

Sullivan, are also extensive manufactories, which may ultimately grow into consuming centres of importance.

The fourth group has manufactories in Saratoga, Herkimer, Fulton, St. Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton, but not extensive, nor are they likely to increase to such an extent as to materially affect the production in their neighborhood, nor are the resources of the soil such as to sustain at any point a very dense population. Its mineral resources may ultimately insure markets.

In many parts of the fifth group there are already manufacturing centres of importance. Buffalo and Oswego are commercial as well as important manufacturing towns. Watertown, Utica, Oriskany and vicinity, Elmira, Ithaca, Jamestown, Corning, Hornellsville, Olean, and numerous other towns, have elements for future important manufacturing centres. Indeed, this whole group must ultimately contain a large aggregate consuming population.

Nearly all the public avenues leading from this State to the vast coal. fields of Pennsylvania are through this group; and it is for the present and future prosperity of our State that such avenues be multiplied wherever practicable, for upon cheap fuel rests the wealth of our future population.

These coal mines are of far more importance to us than the gold mines of California. A people who can command cheap fuel and unlimited iron mines, not only makes the richest placers tributary, but levies a tax upon the industries of the world. With judicious legislation we can command the one; we already possess the other.

The sixth group is almost a succession of cities and villages. Rochester, Auburn and Syracuse are manufacturing centres, rapidly extending; but at Niagara Falls, at Lockport, Medina, Seneca Falls, exists a motive power already used to some extent, but capable of immense enlargement, and at no distant day each will become an important consuming centre; but there numerous villages continually expanding, so that at this time it is doubtful if the surplus products of the adjacent land, except in wheat and fruit, in the aggregate, are adequate for the supply of the non-producing population.

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When it is considered that in this State, of the aggregate population, only about thirty-five per cent. is rural or producing, it may be readily inferred that there must exist somewhere markets for the surplus product of their agriculture.

FACILITIES OF TRANSPORTATION.

The means for inter-communication of persons and property may be divided into two classes: 1st, local, as the public highways of the State; or 2d, general, as railroads, canals, or other navigable waters. The one is local in its uses and benefits; the other general, and principally used for the furtherance of commercial enterprises.

The extent and condition of these two classes of public conveyance are an index to the prosperity of the country.

1ST. LOCAL OR PUBLIC HIGHWAYS.

The aggregate of highways average 11 mile to a square mile of surface, but vary in the different groups, thus:

The system for keeping these roads or highways in repair is very defective, and a vast amount of labor is annually worse than wasted upon them. Still at most seasons, when their use is necessary, they are in sufficient repair to answer their purposes and furnish easy access to the adjoining markets.

2D. GENERAL OR COMMERCIAL ROUTES.

Excluding the shore lines of lakes Ontario and Erie, and of the waters around Long and Staten islands, the whole aggregate length of these routes

The average square miles of area to one mile of route, is eleven square miles of surface to one mile of route.

But the aggregate proportion varies largely in different groups, though the Hudson river is counted in both the second and third groups as an inde pendent route in each. The aggregate of routes and average square miles is:

1st group: 1 mile of route to 8 square miles of surface.

2d do 1

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5.5

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When it is considered that the East river and the ocean, and numerous creeks and bays surround Long Island, and render all parts of it easily accessable to water carriage, it will be found that the proportion of route to square miles of surface is much larger than in any other group, though nominally the third in the list.

But these great commercial routes are the means of furnishing local markets to the farmers along their several lines, aside from the facilities of reaching distant markets with the surplus not there consumed. Upwards of thirty-five millions of dollars are annually collected from the operations of the roads, canals, lakes and rivers. Only a small percentage of this sum goes to repay or replenish capital. The balance finds its way ultimately to the hands of the farmers for the necessaries of life, thus creating a constant market for their surplus products. And these local markets are continually enlarging and improving, as the internal commercial interest flourishes.

Along all these routes are thriving villages or cities, human ant hills of artizans and their dependents, who rely upon their daily wages for their

This includes 120 miles of river route.

daily food. What becomes of these wages? Do they not go in the first place to pay for bread, meat, milk, butter, cheese, which are directly supplied by agriculture along the routes. Consequently there exists a constant demand for productions which our own agriculture can hardly satisfy, and which is for her, to some extent, an unlimited source of profit. The power of these outlets is felt all over the country, giving value to the farm lands in nearly every section of the State.

The evidence of the prosperity of these villages and cities is found in the fact that not only their aggregate valuation is now fully equal to all the lands of the State, but that each year sees this valuation rapidly increasing, while that of the farm lands remain stationary, or increasing so slowly as scarcely to be perceptible.

The census and assessment rolls are not sufficiently specific in regard to the detail of village freeholds. Hereafter it should be shown how much of the real estate of the country is held and occupied in less quantities than ten acres; that quantity being fixed as the maximum of a village lot. It is only by this means that any reliable data can be obtained for a judicious equalization of values among the different counties.