Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1882-02-24


Many good people are distressing them
selves just now about the future of agricul-
ture in this part of the country. Looking
abroad for analogies and taking counsel of
their fears, the forecast they make is gloomy
enough. In England within few years farm
lands have terribly deprecated in value-in
many cases to the amount of so per cent and
more-bankruptcy has been staring large
portion of the tenant farmers of the island in
the face, and the entire fabric of English So
ciety, which rested largely on landed propri-
etorship rs basis, is threatened with disor-
ganization. 1t is alleged that cheap freights,
which have brought our rich Western lands
into direct competition with British farms in
their home market, has caused this ruin, and
it is argued that the same influence is de-
pressing agricultural industry east of the AL
leghanles IN our own country, our less easily
titled land being practically removed by rail
roads 1000 miles away from market to the
side of fertile prairie stretches so that in the
unequal struggle the East must go down. It
is urged that our farmers are generally com
planning of their lot and mourning for the
good old times forever gone. We are told of
mortgage foreclosures and homesteads sold,
and finally it is questioned whether as civil
cation advances the farmer must not gradual
ly sink in the social scale to the level of the
peasants in the old world.
Now the fact is that farmers to-day get bet
ter prices for their crops on the whole than
they did in the good old days, and they can
buy more with their money. In cases where
farms are sold by the sheriff-cases not SO
numerous as our prophets of evil imagine
it will be found that ventures outside of
the farmers legitimate industry-ventures
prompted by that speculative spirit engen-
dered during the demoralizing rush and hav-
M n war tiO1ag-haya haa,, l.. l..
pie for these melancholy failures. Neverthe-
less it must be admitted that there was more
of what passed for solid comfort in the free
and easy times of old than there is o.day
throughout the farming community. And
there ought to be, Farmers dress better live
in better houses and read more than their
fathers did. That their wants are of a higher
class and more varied proves that they are
rising above the social plane where their
fathers were content to remain instead of
sinking to the peasant level. They set out
upon the race of life at a swifter gait, and in
order to hold the pace they must use brain
as well as muscle, and brain work is wearing
work. The solid comfort of the good old
days was really solid comfort-the sluggish
satisfaction of an animal with his stomach
full. The farmer nowadays who is content
with this drowsy existence will enevitably be
left, for his children will demand and receive
what other children have and if the farm is
managed on the slovenly method employed
by our grandfathers-that is, If it is allowed
to run itself-it will not supply the neoessi-
ties Of modern life.
In every community there can be found
farmers who do more than subsist on the
products of their acres. They prosper in
business because they conduct their farms on
business principles. With the necessity of
getting more productive increase from the
soil comes the necessity of more study and
more knowledge The time has come when
the close calculating of the manufacturer
must be applied to agricultural practice. In
the factory profits are made by saving the
small percentages of waste, by adopting labor
saving contrivances by watching the markets
by meking as much finished product and Of
as good quality as possible with a given
amount of raw material procured at the low
est possible outlay. The manufacturer who