Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1873-11-21
The Unproatablcness Of Farming

Politicians do not always hit the
nail on the head when talking to far
mers. AS rule, the politician at
the fair is the politician still, speak
ing for political effects. Now and
then, however, he gets astray from
politics, and perhaps says something
Of practical import to his hearers.
Such was the case with Gen. Butler
at the State Fair in New Hampshire
when he touched upon the unprotit-
ableness Of farming in these words:
1t is complained that farming is
Improbable. Men are leaving the
farm and seeking employment in
manufactures and the trade of the
city. New Hampshire, the agricul-
/ uCIiUO, "a o.. ---a---..-'. or
Giles boy of good parts, IN
he's beyond my management" sri-
Mrs. G. re
81 think l understand his c;hn
madam" said Mr.. Strap, smil in
again. he
farm? Having a cap patsi" OF $500
or $4,000 or $4,000 invested in it.
we ask that the farm shall support
our families, educate our children,
and give us comparative wealth
for old age besides.
And yet, do we treat it as other
business by which they succeed? If
we fail in getting all this from it,
we say at once that farming is UNI
profitable! We are unmindful of
the fact that in mercantile business
only one in a hundred is fairly sue
cessful, and only one in a thousand
eminently so. Does not farming do
as we'll as that and better? Does
only one in a hundred farmers sue
coed to competence, and only one
in a thousand succeed to affluence?
And yet do we not deal with our
farms in the same way that we have
seen that the nation does with its
producers? Do we not take every
thing off and put comparatively
nothing on the land?
In every other business of life all
the gains man gets he Immediate
ly puts back into his business. The
merchant increases his capital year
by year, from gains ofthe preceding
year, and if he is a prudent man, I'M
til it is as large as he can probably
manage. But If the farmer makes
any surplus on his farm, as a rule,
does he return to his land, either in
increased facilities for farming, in
enriching the soil, or draining his
land? On the contrary, is he not
much more likely to invest in rail
road shares, or bonds, or manufac-
turing enterprise, or loan it to some
neighbor? Having taken away from
the farm what the farm has brought
to him, and ought to be returned to
it again, to make it productive, he
leaves it impoverished, and then
complains that the gains do not in
crease.
Is it not the difficulty that he is
continually taking away the increase
of his capital and leaving it only as
it was in the beginning? The mcr-
chant, as we have seen, increases
his capital year by year; but the far
mer too frequently takes his and in
vests it in other enterprises, and
then complains that the farm does
not succeed. No farmer that l ev-
err heard of ever mortgaged his farm
to buy manure to put on it; yet men
DO frequently mortgage their farms
for the purpose of building u fine
house; and may take all the earnings
of the farm for ten years for that
purpose. The mortgage, or the in
once on a farm, as a rule
in the past, except in the change of
fortune made by the change of prices
arising from the war, remains for
years if not foreyer.-Ihe Rwal
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