Arizona citizen., 1872-08-31
What we Know About Farming in
 Arizona.


 than farmers elsewhere on any other part of the free soil of the United
 States of America. Apreciating that agriculture is the base of wealth in all countries, we have taken some pains to study up the question and ascertain the cause of this condition of affairs, and we find they are numer- ous-some of which are beyond power of our own people to remove, but many that can be overcome by unity of action. On account of the hostility of the Apaches, farmers are often compelled to keep surplus of hands for protection, are constantly in dan ger of loosing their work teams and are prevented from keeping stock for its increase, which is always valuable in its connection with farming; then they are compelled to guard their teams when hauling their grain to market. These obtacles are beyond the power of our own people to over come, and to the Government alone must we look for relief. But we find the farmers poor, dependent upon others to furnish supplies until their crops are ready for market, and they are unable to purchase anything ex- cept what those who furnish them choose to let them have, and this generally consists of enough food to sustain life and sufficient agricultural implements to put the crops in the ground, and when harvest comes on they are compelled to hire laborers with sickles to cut the grain and to tramp it out on the ground with ami mals, and depend upon the uncertain winds to separate the chaf from the grain. It will readily be seen that with the slow process of reaping, if laborers are scarce or if they refuse to work, the farmer must necessarily lose considerable of his crop. Then after 1t is harvested the process of threshing is slow and he is at the mer- cy of the rain until this process IS gone through with and propitious winds have enabled h1m to clean 1t and put it in sacks. The consequence of this condition of affairs Is that one-eight | and often one half of the yield is | wasted and Is dead loss to the world, | running the farmer and crippling busi- ness of every kind. Now this ob- stacle is easily remedied and we hope another year will not pass without ac- complishlng it. All that is required is threshers and reapers, and there Is an abundance of means in the country to obtain them. Let the merchants lend their influence and there is not farming settlement in the Territory that cannot purchase the necessary if granted credit until they can pay for them after the crop IS har- vested. They may be required to pay some interest, but that is insig- nifcant compared with the immense loss they suffer each year as above described. It may be said that busi- ness men are capable of transacting their own business without our advise. ] That is probably true, but if they desire to see the country prosper and the farmers enabled to pay their debts, we believe they will profit by seriously considering our sugges- ions. We once were situated on farm, poor and in debt, and we verify believe we should have remained so, put good sameritan came along and helped us to good agricultural imple- nents; in one year after we were out I # debt and have blessed his name ] yer since. So let those who are able z To likewise by our poor farmers, and : hey will profit by 1t, and deserve and |