The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1885-09-11
AND DEMOCRAT BLOOMSBURY. COLUMBIA COUNTY, PA.
The Agricultural Industry.

Secretary L. 5. Gold, OF the Conneo-
ticut State Board of Agriculture, was
recently interviewed by corrcspon
dent of the PHILADELPHIA Press. Mr..
Gold gives his views of agriculture, as
compared with other industries, as fol.
lows If we divide all human industry
into four general divisions, agriculture,
manufactures, commerce, and mining,
agriculture, especially if we consider
the amount of skill exercised in its
prosecution, the privileges Of home and
social enjoyment which it allows, and
the favorable conditions for health and
long life which it offers, yields greater
returns than either of the others. In
the first place its losses are compare
lively small. A farmer rarely fails,
and when he does, his laborers lose
little or nothing They have had their
board, and they usually take up their
wages as fast as they are earEed On
the other hand, in other avocations the
losses are often enormous. The failure
of single mining or manufacturing
enterprise not infrequertly involves the
.otal ruin Of all connected with it.
In some forms of manufacturing,
commercial and mining activity, safety
and success seem reasonably certain.
But these are not the great enterprises
which captivate the imagination. They
are rather operations conducted after
the modest. plodding fashion of ordi-
nary agriculture. In manufactures it is
the small mechanic who earns steady
living and lays by small surplus for
his children, who is the most favored
of his class. In commerce the safest
business is done by the small trader,
especially in the country, where all his
customers are personally known to him.
As medium of exchange between
country and city, between the farm and
the factory, he barely earns an honest
living But take these traders alto
gether, and the net results of their la
bor and capital invested average better
than those of the more ambitious who
seek the higher positions. In mining,
too, the safest investment is where the
baser metals, iron, lead and copper, and
coal to work them, are concerned. 1t
would seem to follow from simple ana
logy that agriculture itself becomes
hazardous, as it expands into bonanza
farming, and the herding of uncoupted
cattle on vast ranges.
Of course, there could be no trade or
manufactures without farming as q
basis, and the rudest form of agricul-
ture, the gathering of the spontaneous
fruits of the earth, is the foundation of
every industry. But this does not JUS
tify the farmer in taking those risks in
other forms of industry which he too
often incurs. When farmers lose mon
ey it is not usually in the pursuit OF
agriculture, but of something else. The
farmers of the country would be richer
IT they had confined themselves to
farming and not taken stock in some
railroad or manufacturing company, or,
worse still, in some mine which they
never saw. The desire to get enormous
profits, to find a fortune instead of
earning it, is as old as the human race.
Too often the farmer who will take q
week in considering the value of COW
be desires to purchase of neighbor,
and then disagrees on dollar or two
in the price, will invest his hundreds
and his thousands, if he has them, in
the "Great Bottomless Gold Mine,'
situated in the Mountains of the Moon.
It is this spirit of speculation, or the
desire to get something out of nothing,
which is fatal. The raising of one
$4,000 colt has demoralzed whole COM
munities. The sales by some fancy
cattle breeder, where a heifer brings
$1,000, the exceptional profits of sin.
gle hop or tobacco crop-anything
which wins prize, like successful
lottery ticket-too often brings on the
delirium of speculation. The farmer
should be the last man in the world to
incur these gamblers risks. His school
ing units him for the excitement of
such games. The rewards of his labors
are found in the quiet of rural life, do
mestic comfort, the sanctities of home.
The feverish spirit OF speculation
should have no place amid such placid
surroundings.