Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-07-21

The Mistakes Farmers Make.
Peck's Sun
An exchange published in the interi-
or of the state speaks OF the departure of
an old settler for Dakota, where he will
take up a quarter section of land and
start in life again at the age of seventy.
The case of the man is so near that of
thousands of others, that a few COM
ments may not be out of place. The
man had a nice farm near splendid
town, where he had lived and brought
up family. He got tired of farming.
sold the farm for six thousand dollars.
moved to town and went into the livery
business, and in three years went
through everything except team and
lumber wagon, and now he has
packed up and gone to Dakota, with a
heart heavier than his pocket-book, and
he will die out there. The number of
farmers that decide to 90 to town to
live, every year, and 90 into business.
is appalling. Every town. has them,
and nine out of ten become poor. They
get an idea that town business men are
the happiest people on earth, and have
an easy time, and they get to brooding
over their hard life, and they think any
body can run store, grocery, or a
livery stable, and they sell out the farm
and 90 into business in town. The
most of them 60 into the grocery bust
ness because it seems so easy to weigh
out sugar and tea. They can always
find grocery man who will sell out the
remains Of sick stock of groceries
for ready cash, and when the farmer
first sees his name over the door of a
| grocery, he feels as though he was
made, and puts his thumbs in the arm
holes of his vest. He uses his money
to stock up, pays cash, and his credit is
good, and he buys everything that is
shown him. The commercial traveller
who first strikes the farmer-grocer has
1t all his own way, and pretty soon the
grocery is full. 1t generally takes a
farmer two years to 90 through two
hundred acre farm in the grocery bus
mess. Instead of the business being an
easy, run-itsef sort of layout, it re-
quires the best management of any
branch of trade. The profits are small.
and the waste is terrible. Agrocer has
got to be as sharp as tacks. The farm
er's girls and boys soon realize that
they are merchants sons and daughters,
instead OF farmers, and they have to
keep up with the procession. There
has to be lots of things bought as mer-
chants that would never be thought of
as farmers. The farm house furniture
is not good enough, the democrat wag-
on gives place to carriage, the old
mares give place to high steppers, and
the girls dress better and do not work.
The family lives out of the grocery, the
boys play base ball, and the girls 90
to big parties. The farmer is a good
fellow and trusts many other good
fellows who can't pay, and in some
cases he gets to drinking. Bills begin
to come in, and he can't collect enough
to pay rent. Friends that would help
him out with money when he had a
farm now tell him that moneyis mighty
scarce, and he will have to give a
chattel mortgage on the stock. The
stock runs down until there's nothing
but red tin can of mustard, with a
bulls head on it, some canned
peaches and cove oysters on the shelves.
a few boxes of wooden clothes
pins, six wagon loads of barrels with
little sugar in the bottom, couple of
dozen washboards, box of Goldfish of
the vintage of 1860, which smells like a
glue factory, show case full of three
cent wooden pocket-combs and blueing,
hair pins and shaving soap, some emp
ty cigar boxes that the boys have
smoked the cigars out of, and a few
such things that do not bring enough at
an auction to pay for printing the auc-
ton bills. Then the farmer breaks up
and goes west, leaving lot of bills in
the hands of lawyer for collection,
who manages to collect enough to pay
his commission, and the family that
was so happy on the farm, and so indie
pendent, becomes demoralized, the
girls marry chambermaids in livery
stables rather than go west, the boys
60 to driving hack or working on
threshing machine, or tending bar, and
refuse to 60 west. and the old folks 90
to Dakota alone, and wish they were
dead, and will be quick enough. This
is the history of thousands of farmers
who get tired of the old farm. If they
would but realize that they are better
fixed than nine tenths of the merchants
In towns, and they cannot become sue
cesstul merchants any more than mer-
chants can become successful farmers.
they would be learning something that
would be valuable TO them.