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1847] therefore have both the legal and moral right to have their interest first consulted. They throw off the protective policy, and cease buying these articles of their neighbors. But they soon discover that to buy, and at the cheaper rate, requires something to buy with. Falling short in this particular, one of these farmers takes a load of wheat to the miller and gets it made into flour, and starts, as had been his custom, to the iron furnace. He approaches the well-known spot, but, strange to say, all is cold and still as death; no smoke rises, no furnace roars, no anvil rings. After some search he finds the owner of the desolate place, and calls out to him, "Come, Vulcan, don't you want to buy a load of flour?" "Why," says Vulcan, "I am hungry enough, to be sure,—haven't tasted bread for a week; but then you see my works are stopped, and I have nothing to give you for your flour." "But, Vulcan, why don't you go to work and get something?" "I am ready to do so. Will you hire me, farmer?" "Oh, no, I could only set you to raising wheat, and you see I have more of that already than I can get anything for." "But give me employment, and send your flour to Europe for a market." "Why, Vulcan, how silly you talk! Don't you know they raise wheat in Europe as well as here, and that labor is so cheap there as to fix the price of flour there so low as scarcely to pay the long carriage of it from here, leaving nothing whatever to me?" "But, farmer, couldn't you pay to raise and prepare garden stuffs, and fruits, such as radishes, cabbages, Irish and sweet potatoes, cucumbers, watermelons and musk-melons, plums, pears, peaches, apples, and the like? All these are good things, and used to