Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1877-08-02
UNEASY, FARMERS.
The demand on newspaper offices
w farmers for exahanoa nar,ers issued

by farmers for exchange papers issued
in. some-out- of the-way section of the
country as Oregon, Florida, New
Mexico, or Southern California is
large, says the Chicago Times. 1t
shows how many farmers are dissatis-
fed with the location where they live.
They have heard one side of the
story, always the bright side, of some
spot where the soil, climate, and pro-
ductions are very different from those
found at home. They become uneasy
and discontented and desire to move
away. The tales of tropical fruit rails
ing in Florida have caused many far
mers in Illinois and Michigan to sell
out at Il sacrifice that they might 90
to the land of flowers and alligators,
of oranges and well-nigh barren sand.
After they had been there little time,
they were less satisfied with the crops
they cotlla raise than at those they
could not produce. The climate
which is good for bananas is found to
be bad for grass, corn, wheat, apples,
gooseberries and cabbages. Cattle
live all winter without protection but
they rarely give much milk or pro-
duce good beef. Oranges may be
produced if Il person understands
orange culture, and has the means to
wait eight or ten years before he has
trees large enough to produce fruit,
Orange raising, however, is a preca,
rious business, and prices seem to be
declining year by year. The number
of places that furnish oranges are in
creasing, the fruit is very perishsbic,
and never ranks among tho staple
articles of commerce. ....
Southern California has been pic
tured as the modern garden of Eden,
That tropical fruits may be produced
there in abundance is certain. That
they are worth next to nothing when
produced, on account of the great dis
tance from market, is also certain. In
fact, fruit raising, as a source of pro-
fit in any of the Pacific States, is vir-
tually abandoned. For distance of
more than thousand miles north and
south, pears of great size and beauty
may be very easily produced. When
a thousand dollars is paid to bring a
car load of them to this market, the
profit of the crop is swallowed up, it
is by no means strange that pear trees
| in California have been cut down for
fuel, or that pears are fed to hogs in
Oregon. Grape raising in California
promised well, and there has been no
trouble either in raising grapes Eor
mehing wine. The trouble is in SELL
| ing the wine after it is nude. The
avarage wine-bibber prefers that which
comes from Spain, France and Ger
many, OF even that produced in Mis-
souri, or Ohio.
Many farmers are carried away,
sometimes rs far as Colorado or New
Mexico, by the accounts they have
read of the production of irrigated
lands. 1t never occurred to these
farmers that they could irrigate land
here as well as there, often at less ex-
pensc. Neither have these farmers
considered that they could under
drain their land, so rs to render it
quite as productive as any that is arti-
ficiaily supplied with water. In truth,
there are many farms that could be
underdrained and irrigated nearly rs
cheap as the same amount of land is
irrigated in some parts of the country.
! 1t is folly, rs Il rule, to leave a section
that is supplied with water by rain
fall, for one where irrigation is neces-
sar.y 1t is also folly, so far as making
money and getting living is con-
ceined, to move to n region where the
Gre ps are tropical or semi-tropical
fruits, for which the nearest market is
several thousand miles off, Certain
persons may improve their health by
such a change, but no person is like
ly to improve his fortune or his gem
eral prospects.
1t is wise to take into consideration
what one would lose, as we'll as what
he would gain, in moving to new
and distant locality. If the proposed
region does not or cannot produce
grass, Indian corn and Irish potatoes,
it is, as rule, a good place to keep
away from. Grass is the most profit
able crop in this country, or in any
country. 1t supports all kinds of
stock, and is essential to the produce
ton of milk. Corn ranks next to
grass in value. Potatoes are very
profitable crop, either for the market
or for home consumption. If a man
lose all these, and in addition to them
apples, he must gain a great many
things to render change desirable.
Generally the region which produces
the largest variety of crops is the hest
for the farmer. An exclusive
ly wheat growing country may be
profitable for a series, but the land
will be OF less value the longer it is
cropped, for there is nothing to re-
store fertility. Few portions of the
earth produce a larger number or
more abundant crops than the valley
Of the Mississippi, and the farmer who
is discontented here will probably be