The Iola register., 1882-03-10
Large and Small Farms.

Large and Small Farms.
There are farmers and stock raisers
who imagine they have a special field of
work adapted to their tastes, and at the
same time. as they think, offering the
best field for profit. With this class of
men, having large farms, it is sometimes
an object to simplify the years work, by
having only one line of industry to look
after; whether this be feeding steers,
growing wheat or wool, or making cheese
and butter. A man may not make as
much profit from each acre through either
of these modes as though the farm were
divided up and represented 4 variety of
farm industries; but to accomplish this
latter with success, a number of heads
will be required, and very likely an in
crease of force. So the large farmer or
stock raiser takes a position similar to
that occupied by the commander of a
seventy-four gun ship, as compared with
the officer who controls cruising sloop;
or the man who safely conducts vessel
across the ocean bearing q thousand pas
sengers, as compared to the man who
runs ferry. On the same principle, one
man is enabled to conduct manufacture
ing industry requiring several hundred
hands, provided the enterprise devotes
itself to one line of work, whether this
be the casting of car-wheels or stoves,
the making of boots and shoes, or farm
wagons.
Butall cannot obtain the control of large
industries. even if adapted to it, which
tho o.Dr ~ ,f
one can obtain large farm, even though
competent to manage it, and turn off a
hundred steers annually, or take charge
of wheat farm requiring twenty reap
ers in use during each harvest. One ad-
vantage to the man who manages one
farm industry on large scale is, that he
has but one routine scale of duties to ac-
custom himself to, and his men, falling
into set habits, familiarize themselves
with these daily duties; hence become,
to degree, experts in performing them.
Having the prospective income depend
ent upon one staple, the proprietor is
able, discounting for possible contingen-
cies to estimate with tolerable exactnesS
what the income for the year will be.
And. what is sometimes an important
factor in his success, the prospective
clip from five hundred or more head of
sheep, the crop from five hundred acres
of wheat, or the cash for hundred steers,
in either case, form basis upon which
the banker is quite willing to discount
his paper.
But while these things are all true and
have applications as stated, still, the
great bulk of men who till the soil as a
business pursuit, are debarred from tax
ing hold of an large enterprise, and are
compelled to attend the practical work
ings of small farm, taking position
before consumers the same, relatively.
as is occupied by the retail grocer or dry
goods merchant, aiming to furnish in de-
tail, as near everything that consumers
want as it will pay them to produce.
The bone of the agriculture of Europe
lies largely in the system of landowner
ship. The lines are drawn too taut be-
tween the owners of the land and those
who merely till it for pittance, paying
much of this pittanse as rent, living the
while under roof not their own. The
same tendency exists in our own coun-
try. and a few more panics may con-
tribute to a concentration not in keeping
with our status in this regard, as gener-
ally understood, especially in other coun-
tries.
1t is upon the accession of a money
crisis that the farmer who grows pretty
much everything wanted on his family
table, is able to realize how independent
he is of the outside world, and upon
what a sure basis he stands. Modern
modes have too much broken in upon
some of the habits learned in other cOun-
tries, through which those who were not
able to own farms of considerable size,
were, nevertheless, quite able to earn
good hvings on farms of moderate pre-
tensions. This applies, perhaps, more
especially to the French than to any other
people, as on their farms of fifteen to
forty acres, they are enabled to earn
better living, and have more of a saving
in cash to invest in Government securi-
ties than the average farmer in some of
the States we could name, who culti-
Yates, or pretends to cultivate, farms of
four or five times the size. The capa-
bilitieS of small farmers have been too
often demonstrated to leave any doubt
as to their capacity to keep stock and
raise hay, grain, truck, and fruits, be-
yond the expectation of such as have not
seen the system fully tested. This has
not been done in this country to any con-
. siderable extent; yet the system, if put
into practice, as in some portions of
Europe, would afford relief to thousands,
who now swell the population of our
cities, living in the most precarious man
ner. A thrifty housewife has often been
able, through her butter product, with
poultry, eggs and surplus truck and
fruit, to meet large portion of the living
expenses of the family. There is an in
dependence in this self-dependent mode
of living, which should draw away much
of the city population, thereby warding
off pauperism, and placing the younger
members of the family under influences
favoring future usefulness, in place of
holding them in crowded city, where
the tendencies are toward poverty and
crime.-NdttOnal Lire Stock Journal.
Unlocked For Defects.
MANY horses GO through a fair train