The Red Cloud chief., 1882-01-19
Large or Small Farms.

Iob o VI ckno1h thSs
Ideas about agriculture are divcrsi-
6ed and often conflicting. but IT seems
10 be a generally accepted n that
small farms are better than large ones
II is quite fashionable for agricultural
writer's to decry large farms and 10 de-
clare that the great reason OF the poor
status of agriculture Is that ou farms
are too large. This is held tn be es-
pecially true of the Western States IL
NAV be SO. The greed for land has
been great. vet | am inclined 10 think
that the evil is not so great as IL is rep
resented TO be. Still there i some rea-
son for the idea- There is a lin 10
the capabilities of every man, both men-
tai and physical; and the cheapness Of
Western land has caused many men 10
try and farm twice as much land IS they
should. But not unfrequenHy thu man
who farms one hundred acres does Is
badly rs the n who has i've hundred.
He NAV have proport;onate!y a greater
excess. Some men a farm FIVE times
as much land as others. In fact - far
at nv own observation goes, II is our
largest farmers who are our best farm
ers. | think that the way TIE land is
titled does not depend 50 much on the
number of acres in the farm a ON the
system, int !ligcnt brain work and
strict business principles of the farmer
himself.
Large farms have some ~diSadvan-
tayes. | do not think that one man
can probably farm more than eighty
acres of good tillable land. II he IS
able 10 run tour times this much lie
must hire three hands Ia help TIL il.
Now this brings labor AMI capital IN
contrast. and make only one land
holder where there should he four.
Then the hired man has no personal
interest in his work; whether he dUes
his WORT well or bad it makes no di'-
ference 10 him. SO he gets his wages.
Human nature is ALWAYS partial TO
Sinking: as a consequence four fitths
of the hired farm hands Of the country
shirk their work and the result is poor
farming.
But the great trouble i that the
farmer in his haste To get more land
goes into debt. Probably he has
enough money to buy and well stock
eighty acres. But instead of ~ dong.
he buys one hundred aud sixts, goes
into debt and has no money for stock
or farming implements. With no cattle
or sheep to e. the fodder or straw, or
swine TO eat the corn, the produce that
can be marketed is sold of o. the
farm. This in tine will %impOycrish
any farm. What we want Is stock
enough to eft the grain. straw and iod-
der raised on the farm. But the farmer
has MOI. the stock. neither has he farm
in@ in picmcntS and machinery. He
uses old plows, rollers, drags, cult
,ators, scythes. hoes, etc. and OF
course cannot do good farming with
them. just as n carpenter could not
DO good c~arpenicring with worn out
tools. He hires his neighbor reaper
and drill, and of course waits until his
neigh5or cuts or drills his " grain.
While waiting. five times ont OF ten,
his grain lodges, becomes too ripe. or
else his wheat ground that lie had
ready FOR the drill that he IL waiting
for gets out of condIt on. THIS is poor
farming. | cannot blame Il farmer so
situated for complaining ot hard times.
while all the time the dreadful thought
and fact of debt hangs over him and
his wife, TO give uncaSincSs during the
day and unrest at night.
Suppose that he had purchased only
eighty acres of land. Then he would
have had money to stock II. buy ncccS-
sarv farm machinery of good quality.
and have had a little ready cash for
safe bargains. Right here is the great
defect of our farming TO dag. So awful
MAN. of us are always hard up. we
have none of the wheTew.thal where
we en- handle il. a nciohbor wants
TO sell some calves or hogs At figures
that will give a bargain TO the pur-
chaser, but we have no money to buy
and some s%peculator pockets the gain.
There is always something happening
whereby we might make monet if we
had n little ready capital to employ. |
would not advise farmers to speculate
and neglect their own business, but
there are often little spcculations per-
fectly safe and reasonably profitable
that the farmer might engage in.
When n neighbor has cheap hogs and
another cheap corn for sale, the farmer
with ready capital could bay both, and
feeding the corn to the hogs reap 4 rich
reward.
A farmer in debt often practices false
economy. He has forty acres of corn
to u out. He feels poor. resolves 10
economize, does not hire help. but re-
solves TO prepare the ground and culii-
vate the corn himself. II he had moth
ing else to do. lost no time by rain or
anv other cause. he might put out and
cultivate that area of corn. But it
commences to rain. the farmer gets in
a hurry. plows when the ground is wet,
! and rs 4 consequence breaks up cloidv,
puts the corn in the mud. does lot cul-
tivate it properly. and gets twenty bush
els of orn per acre.
Or he concludes that he cannot aHord
to fix some weak fence. and that night
the cattle break yer the fence and dc.
stroy the wheat and corn. u. VI. StGti,
in UeSttrn RUrdL
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