The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1859-05-12

pect in the first place is good for home
market-as there is but little doubt but
that work will be resumed, at an early
day. on the Dubuque & Pacific Railroad,
and if so, we may safely calculate to
have the cars at our doors next Spring,
to carry off all our surplus crops
1t will cost to pillow for corn, per acre, say ST. so
Narrowing and marking. --.--.- Is
Planting and seed >. - 1913 rs
Flowing, three times, 2,25
Smelling and carrying to railroad, 49,. 900
use OF land ..----'.- 49, -S---------- 200
IF .a A ~ 1926
Now, we will call an average yield of
corn, per acre, 50 bushels. 1t is now
worth in Chicago II cents, and it would
cost, by railroad, 25 cents ,bushel to
deliver it there from this place. But, to
be safe in our estimate, we will call the
average price in Chicago only 60 cents,
less freight, leaving the average price
here thirty-five cents, which would give,
as the avails Of one acre, $3.50, show
ing a profit over cost of labor of 1925
per acre.
Now let us look at it from another
point. 1t is allowed, l believe, that an
efficient man, not too much encountered
with other work, will tend thirty acres Of
corn through the season.
The labor in the above estimate being
ST ,95' per acre, '''.'4 - - .l'
Amounts on 80 acres to. S217 so
Profit, $S,25 per acre, .-...-.. PAT so
Total, =. s465 90
All of which is for labor, allowing a
good margin for contingencies. l have
not in the above statement allowed any
thing for harvesting, as l am writing
only for those who have farms of their
own, and consequently stock and the
value of the fodder consider fully equal
to the labor Of gathering. l have meant
to make ell my estimates for labor high
enough, and l think when it is remem-
bered that the corn crop does not inter
fere with raising a large amount of
small grains, and gives the farmer the
whole winter to himself to perform the
necessary work of hauling and prepar-
ing the wood for the fire, and tending
his stock, it will be allowed l have.
But | have not, in the above statement,
given, in my view, the most profitable
side of corn raising. 1t should be fed
at home. Stock in the eastern markets
has increased in value at least thirty three
and a-third per cent. during the past
SIX months. Any one that will look at
a review Of those markets from week to
week, will find that the first quality Of
Beef is worth from nine to ten dollars
per hundred pounds, weighing what is
termed Give quarters, that is, beet,
hide and talloao Such beef as can be
made on our prairies here by grass,
would, to-day, be worth in the Boston
market, eight dollars and fifty cents per
hundred pounds. Mutton, Wool-in
short, everything that farmer here can
raise, of the stock kind, is now bring
ing in the eastern markets extravagantly
high prices. Farmers and those who
deal in stock have been coming money
the past winter. And it is just as sure
that the influence of their prosperity will
extend itself here, as it was that when
under their rotten banking system, the
banks all found themselves-to use a
common phrase" brought up stand
ing" and were obliged, in order to save
themselves, to stop paying their own
debts, but meanwhile to pat on extra
screws TO force collections from their
debtors, that we should feel the effects
of that panic more severely than they,
and much longer. Had the money pam
ic of 1857 at the east. been followed by
the loss of all the crops of the farmers
in 1858 anything like as generally as it
was here at the west, it would have
spread dlsmay over the whole commu-
nifty in those States that are now point
ing the finger of scorn at our merchants,
because their notes are not all paid at
maturity. So far as | know, the farmers
of the West, generally. owe debt Of
gratitude 10 the merchants for when
they saw the suffering that forcing col
lections would cause, they were lenient,
and let their own credit suffer in conse-
quence thereof But brighter day
trust is coming, and every farmer of Blu
chanan county and of the West, owes it
10 himself and to those merchants that