Edgefield Advertiser

Value of Railroads to Farmers.

We notice in some of the agricultural journals complaints of the farmers against railway companies; that they take up the best lands of the farm, do not protect the lands, and often kill the sheep and cattle, and are of doubtful utility. This is a very short-sighted view of the influence of railroads upon the farming interests. By opening new markets for districts remote from the city they often double the value of farms within a few years. Instead of a dull market the farmers all along the line of road find it difficult to meet the pressing demands for milk, butter, cheese, eggs, lambs, pigs, and almost everything that the farm produces. Husbandry thrives under the stimulus of a hungry market. Almost everything brings cash in hand, instead of the old store pay with a settlement once a year. Farm lands are in brisk demand, and go up in price forty, fifty and a hundred per cent. We believe that railroads have added enough to the value of the farms of this country to pay for one half the original expense of building them, enormous as it is. We were conversing with an intelligent farmer a few days since, who lives upon the line of the Syracuse and Binghamton railroad. The stock was worthless, and he had lost the six hundred dollars he had put into it. But he said he considered it one of the best investments he ever made, for it had added ten thousand dollars to the value of his farm. Farmers, then, can afford to put up with the trifling inconvenience of railroads. It is safe for them to subscribe for a share of the stock, according to their means, if they can thereby secure the building of a road and open a ready market for their produce.—N. Y. Times.