The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-09-24

often made the shoes for the family, when
the wife spun the fax and wool. woye the
Fabric, and made their clothing, when
respers and mowers, gang-plows and
horse-hoes, seed drills and corn-planters,
hay-tedders and horse-forks, were un-
known; farmers were in high degree in
dependent. But the farmer of to day is
living in quite another age. He is but
the producer of the raw material, and is
just as dependent upon men following the
other various pursuits of life, as they are
uron him.
The tendency to minute division Of
labor which has come, with the advance :
ment of civilization, while it has greatly
increased the prosperity ofthe farmer
has at the same time taken from MIN
whatever independence he once possess
ed, and made him but one Of many
equally important agents in society. At
the present time the western farmer inds
himself producer of two commodities,
corn and wheat, which be must exchange
for clothing, coffee, tee, sugar, and other
household articles, for the machinery
without which he cannot successfully
compete with other farmers, for sckool
books, newspapers and magazines ana
for those articles Of luxury" that are
now found in every farmers home. AS
long as there was a demand tor ali his
corn and wheat, prosperity prevailed.
But he has now produced more of these
grains than the country needs, and hence
finds it impossible to dispose of his pro-
duce at remunerative prices. He is in the
the same situation thai a wagon maker
would be, who with ut having regard to
the fifty wagons needed in a community
each year, should enlarge his factory,
and turn out hundred. When the mar
ket was fully supplied, fifty wagons
would remain unsold, and if working on
limited capitaI, the manufacturer would
be unable to pay either bis warkmen, Or
for the material he had consumed
Bankruptcy would be the inevitable re-
suit of snch course.
Wheat, it is true. can be exported to
foreign countries when there is demand
but foreign demand is ftful, and is in no
degree sufficient fer the dependence of an
interest, possessing the magnitude of the
one under consideration. If any crop is
to be grown as staple product, over a
given extent of territory, there must be q
certain, and continued demand for an
average yield upon that territory, in or
der to make the raising of such crop, q
safe venture. Such demand does not
exist for the immense wheat crop of the
western States. Hence the farmers Crafl
has been continually threatened with
wrecking upon the Scylls of an owe,
production on one hand or upon the
Chrrybdis of a poor crop OF the other
The dilema was this, he could not ex-
pect high prices if his yield was good
one, while If the prices were high, they
were so because of The drouth, the chinch
bug or the grasshopper. So that whether
or not his acres yielded abundantly, hard
times perpetually stared him in the face.
To the man vino fully comprehended
his position, the future must have pre-
scented cherries, desolate aspect The
violent and bitter attacks of the past
two years, upon railroads and commission
men, by the farming community, were
the result of the desperation to which
they had been driven by their apparently
hopeless condition. At the close of a
years hard labor, they were in no better,
often not ia as good, circumstances as at
its beginning. Creditors were calling
for money, when corn and wheat were
all the farmer possessed with which
to raise it. and they were selling for less
than the cost of production. An evil
existed somewhere. The charges of
railroads and commission men appeared
exorbitant. when compared with the
price of grain, and SO it became easy to
attribute to these agents evils, for which
they were but partially or IN no wise
responsible.
This feeling of bitterness has grown,