The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1877-07-05


accessories of the farmStead. A crowd
of new wants meet the new or young
farmer at the outset of his career, and
as the means to purchase these must
be borrowed, load of debt at once
weighs him down and clogs and hob
bles him. Now, too, our taxes are a
very serious incumbrance on the prof
it's of the farm. Comfort and happi-
ness are fled from the farmers home,
and care and anxiety take their place.
Formerly, farmers worked hard, but
borrowed no trouble on that or auy
other account; now they are down
trOdden and worried, and worry is a
far heavier burden than work. How
to procure money to make ends meet
is the burden of their minds and moth
ing comes to ease it. This is the gen
eral condition of things among those
who cultivate the soil. Is there way
of deliverance!
There seems to be but one remedy,
and that isa slow one, and not imme-
diately effective. TO reach it. both
farmers and capitalists need to be ed
ucated to it, but it seems to be
inevitable that it must come about in
course of time. 1t is change of own
ership of the soil, and the creation of
class of landowners Oh the one hand,
and of tenant farmers on the other.
Something similar, in both cases, to
what has long existed, and now exists,
in the older countries of Europe, and
similar, also, to system that is COM
mon in our own state of California.
Those farmers who are land-poor must
sell, and become tenants in place of
owners of the soil. The boarded idle
capital must be invested in these lands
and turned over to the poor farmers,
who will at once be set upon their feet;
not to go and loaf about towns and
villages spending their money while it
may last, but to buy with this money
stock, fertilizers, implements, ma
chimes, and go to work to cultivate the
soil prOfitably. Instead Of their mon
ey being sunk and dead in unproduc-
tive acres, it will be invested in cows,
sheep, swine, of improved breeds; in
guanO and fertilizers, by which the
crops will be doubled or trebled. 1t
will thus become active and produc-
tive, and capable of doubling itself
within the year. The farmer will be
relieved from the burden of bad in
veStment on which he now makes no
interest, and his money will be placed
where it will do the most good. He
will at once be lifted from poverty to
financial ease, land in place of an unsal.
able farm, he will have to. show for his
money some property that will realize
all that it is worth at a public sale at
"a hours notice. Very much more
than this is implied in this change
that is SO obvious to the practical man
that it need not be particulariZed.
The owners of money, now nnpro-
ductive, would by thus investing their
idle capital become possessed Of real
estate of the most valuable and pro-
ductive kind. In place of an anxious
speculative business, full of risk, they
would have one of an easy, agreeable
character which would draw them
at least part of the year-tO the coun-
try to care for their property, in the
midst of rural pursuits and pleasures.
The improvement of their land by
draining. building, fencing, and clear.
ing would increase it in value and
largely add to its productive capacity.
Their money thus invested would find
employment for themselves, as well
as set TO work many men, now only
half employed. In every way there
would be gain. Our rural social sys-
TEN would be improved; the soil would
be made largely more productive, and
money that now lies idle, folded and
hidden In napkin as it were, would
be put into circulation, and giving life
to labor. would increase itself. 1t
would in fact ssbe twice blessed, :"
blessing ''him that gives and him that
takes" and would fulfill its proper
work in the social economy. 1t would
be attracted toward agriculture as the
safest investment. and farmers would
he relieved from what is now the
source of bitter complaints. viz: that
capital avoids them.
1t is.yery certain that American ag-
rlculture is on the eve of serious
changes and of great improvements.
This must be, for it cannot go back
and it cannot stay where it is. The
greatest industry Of the country cam
not remain in an Improbable or un-
satisfactory condition, nor can it long
remain without the use of adequate
capital to invigorate it and give it full
scope. Thousands of persons now idle
look to it for employment, and if there
were farms to rent there would be
plenty Of tenants for them. Every
thing seems ripe for the change. Half
the farms in the country are ready to
be sold if buyers would only appear;
and hundreds that can now be bought
for less than their value Door 30 years
ago need only some judicious OUTLAY 30
make them as productive as ever. Few
farmers can hope to provide their sons
with farms of their own, and there Is
no place for these young men in the
oyercrowded cities. But to stock A
rented farm is not 50 difficult a matter
for father intent on starting 4 son
i'm life. This would be easy to do ii