News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-08-10
FARMER AND GROCERYMAN.
Peck tells Us of the Mistakes the
Farmer Sometimes Makes.

Peck tells Us of the Mistakes the
Farmer Sometimes Makes.
From the Milwaukee SUM-
An exchange published in the interior
of the State speaks OF the departure of
an old settler for Dakota, where he will
take up quarter section OF land and
start in life again ct the age OF seventy.
The case Of the man is SO near that OF
thousands of others, that few COM
menta may not be ont of place. The
man had nice farm near splendid
town. where ne had lived and brought
up q 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 heart
heavier than his pocket book, and he
will die out there. The number OF
farmers that decide to go to town to
live, every year, and go 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
livery stable. and they sell out the farm
and go into business in town.
The most of them go into the gro
Gerry business because it seems SO easy
to weigh out sugar and tea. They can
always find q groceryman who will sell
out the remains Of sick stock of gro
ceries for ready cash, and when thu far
nner 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 Credits
good, and he buys everything that Is
shown him. The commercial traveller
who first strikes the farmer grocer has
it ell his own way and pretty soon the
grocery is full. It generally takes a far
mer two years to go through two hun
dred acre farm, in the grocery business.
Instead of The business being an easy,
run-itself sort of lay out, it requires
the best management of any branch OF
trade. The profits are small, and the
waste is terrible. A grocer has got to
be sharp as tacks. The farmers girls
and BOYS soon realize that they are mer-
chants sons and daughters, instead OF
farmers, and they have to keep up with
the procession.
There has been lots of things bought
as merchants that would never be
thought Of as farmers. The farm house
furniture is not good enough, the dem
ocrat wagon gives place to carriage,
the old mares give place to high step
pers, and the girls dress better, and do
not work. The family lives out of the
| grocery, the boys play base ball, and
! the girls go to big parties. The farmer
is a good faIIov- and trusts many Other
| good fellows who can't pay, and in SONS
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, viii now tell him money is mighty
scarce, and he Will have TO give chat
tie mortgage on the stock. The stock
runs down until there's nothing but a
red tin can OF mustard, with bulls
head on it, some canned peaches and
cove oysters on the shelves, q few boxes
Of wooden clothes-pins, sixwagon loads
of barrels with q little sugar IN the bot
tom, q couple of dozen washboards,
box of Goldfish OF the vintage of 1860,
which snells like glue factory, show
case full of three-cent wooden pocket
combs and blueing, hair pins and shay
ing soap, some empty cigar boxes that
the boys have smoked the cigars out
OF, and few such things that do rot
bring enough at an auction to pay for
printing the auction bills.
Then the farmer breaks up and goes
west, leaving lot of bills in the hands
cf a lawyer for collection, who manages
to collect enough to pay his commits
sion, and the family that was so happy
on the farm, and SO independent, be-
comes demoralized, the girls marry
chambermaids in livery stables rather
than go west, the boys go to driving
hack or working on threshing machine
or tending bar, and refuse to go west,
and the old folks go 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 nlne-
tenths of the merchants in towns, and
that they cannot become successful
merchants any more than merchants can
become successful farmers, they would
be learning something that would be
valuable to them.