Huntsville gazette., 1885-03-21
FARMING.
Little Doubt That, in the Long Run ana on
the Whole, 1t Pays.


LITTLE Doubt That, in the Long Run and on
the Whole, 1t Pays.
When wheat sells below the cost OF
production, does farming pay? No one
who is at all versed in economic laws
will hesitate to answer that in the long
run and on the whole farming must
pay. Like other industries, it has its
periods of depression and must some
times temporarily suspend production.
But, unlike most other industries, it
can change its product at will. When
there is an overproductiOn OF iron the
forges can not turn to and make boots
and shoes. The. capital and labor in
vested must lie idle until the demand
catches up with the supply. But years
ago, when the world became glutted
with corn, the farmers planted their
fields with wheat. If it is now glutted
with wheat the farmers will produce
meat. Root crops, alfalfa and corn
can be profitably turned into beef and
pork. The price of meat steadily adj
vances from one generation to the
other There is no possibility of pro-
ducing too much of it. There are
countless millions in the world to
whom it is as yet only known as .
luxury.
Farming pays from every point OF
view. The idea that farmer can make
an independent living by hard work,
but can not get rich is full of error.
Farming can not be compared with
banking, because a man has to get rich
at something else before he can be
banker. But when due allowance is
made for the different amounts of capi-
tai invested, we venture to assert that
the average farmer makes more money,
works less, has better health and lives
! longer than the average banker. And
yet banking is the cream of city occu-
patton.
1t is fair to put the farmers and their
employees into one class and the rest of
the population in the other. One hum
| dred thousand people in city can be
| compared with one hundred thousand
in the country. The latter undoubtedly
make and possess the most money. The
| city may contain a dozen millionaires
and the country none, but there will be
| two dozen paupers in the city to one
in the country. Out of one hundred
thousand city inhabitants only few
thousand have independent incomes.
The vast majority live on wages, and
if discharged one day do not know
where they will obtain their bread the
next. Indeed, the bulk of the smaller
tradesmen and professional men, who
are their own masters, are seldom over
few months ahead of starvation. A
few weeks of stagnation is apt to force
them to buy their daily food on credit.
But in section where small farms
are the rule and where almost every
farmer does his own work, every man
is veritable king. He may not have
as fine clothes or as dyspeptic food as
the rich mans servant, but he is
healthier and happier than the rich
man himself. He is generally a year
or more ahead of starvation and bank
ruptcy, even if events do their worst.
He feels that the air he breathes is his
own, that he has to come and go at no
mans call. that he is a shareholder in
the earth that he treads, and that he is
in reality, as well as in name, a free
American citizen. His life is peaceful
and serene to an extent which can not
be understood by the average city man,
whose days are days Of toll and whose
nights are full of anxiety.-DenUer
(C0l Tribune.