The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-07-10
Does Farming Payg

That farming pays IN any Such way
as banking or mercantile business:
that the farmer is ever likely to become
as wealthy as the manufacturer or the
railroad man, cannot be claimed. We
are not aware that anybody does claim
it. But the opportunities these and
similar branches of business afford
aside, it is open to question whether
any business pays as we'll as farming.
The middle into which men fall on
this subject arises from the fact that
many men have many false notions of
what constitutes pay. There is NO
small number that think that only
those occupations are remunerative
which bring in hard cash. Those who
take the sensible view have no doubts
on the question. They see no other
question than that of definition, and
that farming is one of the best-paying
businesses in which vast majority Of
men engage they have 10 doubt.
In the vast workshop of nature there
is never a strike. Work is always go
ing on. The mighty processes never
cease. Here and there, now and then,
there may be slight relaxations. A
drought may come, or the rains fall in
superabundancc. But on the whole
the work goes on ceaselessly. The sun
shines, the gentle rains fall, and the
earth brings forth of its fruits and its
plentiful harvests. In this vast work
shop the farmer is the laborer. He
tolls as men toll in the great manufac-
tories or in the mines, only he is de-
pendent on no great corporations or
capitalists for his place or his pay. He
works for nature, and nature pays him.
1t must be hard year when the farm
er can not make his living and the liv-
ing of his family. If the idea prevails
anywhere that this is not pay, let him
who entertains it ask the man who is
working for wages in any city in the
country, in any business he pleases,
what he thinks. The wage-man works
from one weeks end to another, from
one years beginning TO the beginning
of the next. to make what the farmer
always makes. If he makes his ex.
penses, he counts himself as doing
well. If he save hundred or two dol
lars he deems himself doublv happy.
And there are thousands who have had
a struggle the last few years to make
even their bread.
All the time the great industrial
classes have been feeling the effects
of the hard times, the farmers have
had little reason to complain. Prices
of products have gone down, but the
farmers have had their living always
Their children have not cried fol
food. The distress that has fallen or
the agricultural classes of England has
not visited them, nor can it ever visit
them. They have been free from the
distresses of all those engaged in me
chanical pursuits.
| The farmer is his own master. HI
is not dependent on combinations. HI
derives advantage from railroads, but
he does not need railroads to make his
living, or for his means of subsistence
He can not be affected by strikes. and
though he may use the oldest-fashionet
implements, he is only placed at dis
advantage with respect to labor; hi
does not lose the fruits of his toll.
The farmer who complains of hard
times has no adequate conception Of
the meaning of the words. He does
not realize what it is to see the STOCK
growing lower and lower, day aftel
day, and no means of replenishing it
He does not know what it is to bt
willing and able to work and have ne
work to do. He does not know what
it is to hear the cry of the wolf at the
door. He never will while nature, kline
and benefcent in this country, afford.
rich and bountiful lands to those who
are willing to cultivate theme ncin
matt Times.