The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-06-16
SMALL FARMS.
The Folly of Attempting to Raise Grain On
Them.


Them.
There are thousands of small farms
scattered through all sections of the
country, but more particularly in the
/ Eastern and Northern States, upon
which the ambitious owners are trying
to initiate the policy of the great grain
growers of the West. The owners of
these small farms have a mistaken idea
as TO what their small acres are best
fitted to produce in order to give them
| full and profitable employment.
A large share of these small farms
are located in timber countries, where
the soil is frequently of light sandy
character. Such farms are not adapted
to grain raiSNg. Stumps usually go
together on these soils. and where they
are found labor-saving implements
can not be used to advantage. Even il
the land were smooth, the small area
cultivated would preclude the use of
high-priced machinery on the score OF
economy.
The owners of these farms do not
seem to take into consideration the
fact that there are millions of acres of
rich Western lands producing grain at
less than half the cost per bushel that
they can produce it for, and with bet
ter facilities for marketing it.
Sulky plowS, seeders, reapers and bird
ers. are, by reason of their high prices,
and for the reasons given above, out
of the reach of the small farmer. Not
so with the great grain raisers of the
West, however. ANY machine that
lessons hand lasor materially is cheap
to them at almost any price. This fact
alone would preclude all possibility of
successful competition. And when we
consider the superior adaptability of
these Western lands for grain raising
purposes we can easily understand how
Improbable any competition with them
will prove to the small farmer on a
comparatively light soil.
Why then will our small farmers per-
sist in following a policy that is so
| ruinous to their interests? Probably
! with this as with most other questions
MANY conditions are involved. If we
were to closely investigate the causes
in the present, prominent among them
would be found the following, no
doubt:
First. The tendency of a class to
follow in old established WAYS. Their
fathers and grandfathers before them
have raised grain all their lives, and
they seem to think that they are not
farming unless they do the same. They
forget that the condition of things fifty
years ago was entirely different from
what they are at present Facilities
for marketing and exchanging products
fifty years ago were very limited in
deed. In those days it behooved every
farmer to raise, as far as possible, all
those articles that were needed for his
own home consumption. But to-day
the case is entirely different. The
facilities for transportation are so uni
versal and so comparatively cheap that
it is no longer inperatively necessary
for the farmer to produce those things
that are not naturally adapted to the
capacity of his soil. 1t will not pay for
him to try to raise his own bread when
wheat can be put down at his very door
for less than it would cost for him
to produce it, any more than
it would pay him to 60 on carding,
spinning and weaving his own wool
when he can buy the manufactured
cloth at half the cost of the labor that
he would have to put into its construc-
ton, if he insisted On following old
hand methods.
Another reason why farmers con-
tinue on in the old WAYS of farming is,
I think, because they lack that knowl-
edge and skill which the finer branches
of husbandry demand. This is not so
much lack of ability as it is lack of
inclination, or of concert in that par
ticular line. 1t does not require any
very great amount of skill to pillow,
sow and harvest grain, year after year.
especially where no heed is taken of
the ultimate wants of the soil, as is
too often the case in great grain rails
ing districts. Yet farmers are prone
to turn up their noses at any other
kind of farming. Fruit raising and
gardening are poohed and sneered at
by such men as being away below their
notice. Many of our small farmers
try to take on the same airs. and could
not think of descending from their
agricultural dignity enough to engage
in any such small one-hOrse business
as have mentioned, even if it did
offer double the returns from an acre,
thus giving full and profitable employ
rIent upon few acres.
Small farms demand small farming.
This might mean dairying in small
way, fruit growing. gardening. or any,
thing that yields large returns from
small areas, giving profitable employ
ment to the available labor as great .
part of the year as possibility ID.
BOynton, in Western PloUmGn.