The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1888-10-27
4 Want of Faith i'm Farming.

A Want OF Faith i'm Farming.
The american CnltiUat0r says there
is dangerous kind of infidclity among
farmers which not the religious but the
agricultural press can best deal with.
| This is, briefly, the want of faith that
their business is or can be profitable.
1t prevails to-day more extensively
than ever before, and is undoubtedly
due 10 tho sharper competition that
| the farming business has been subject
ed to. 1t was bad enough when the
great west poured its cheaply-grown
products in competition with those of
other sections. but now the competition
is becoming general. Cheap pauper
labor pouring into the great agricult-
ural sections causes most Of this COM
petition, the writer says.
But the'farmer who has faith in his
business (and all should have faith),
may easily head off this trouble bv the
employment of labor-saving machinery
and implements. In such implements
and machinery there has been made
| astonishing progress OF late. But the
simple employment of these advantag-
es is not cnough-good farming born
of the best intelligence must be asSoCi-
ated with their use. A machine may
do its work to perfection, but it can
not think. We may do most of the
labor on the farm by machinery, but
it calls for brain power to make the
machine put il in where it is needed,
and when it is needed.
The farmer must have faith in his
business, and under the stimulus of
this must exert himself TO not only
drive it to success oy every available
means, but to drive it to better sue
cess each year. Good farming pays,
but il may be made something more
than mere good farming. With this
in view should be directed the farmers
| thought and skill. 1t is the demand of
the agc.
The old idea Of farming, and for its
time the correct idea, was that it was
mainly hard work. The method of
farming ran mainly in ruts, and when
a man got into one of these all he had
to do was to pull ahead. He need not
even plan. The rut was all sufficient
to direct his course. The man who
got up earliest, worked hardest and
longest, made the most money. He
was by these facts the good farmer,
and therefore successful.
Hard work never has been and never
will be entirely eliminated from tilling
the soil. Thorns and thistles and
weeds it produces, as it has always
done, and it is still in the sweat of the
brow that the toll tiller eats his bread.
But we have relieved the farmer from
more toll than would once have been
thought possible, only it operates pref
ty impartially upon farmers of all class
es. The better farming now needed
must be the individual work and
thought Of the farmer himself. If he
can not plan, calculate, and judge
about the details of his business, he is
| in no better shape for success than his
| unskilled competitors, who perhaps
work harder and for less wages than
| he.
Can American farmers maintain
their civilization, culture, and interest
| in all that concerns humanity while in
| competition with scmi-barbarous COM
| petitors? There is no more important
| question than this before the American
| public to-day. 1t far transcends the
pretty disputes of political partisans
about the spoils of Office. The Ameri-
can CultiUator believes they can and
that is can be done only through such
improvements in farm stock of every
kind, and in methods of manuring,
understanding. and cultivation, rs to
enormously increase the value of all
our agricultural products. Possibly
in some things 1t may be impossible
| for us TO hold our own. These the
skilled farmer will avoid-hc will con-
fine his operations to such things as he
is sure can be made to pay, and run no
risks. OF course there are two ways
of paying-onc thing may pay direct
| ", and something associated with it
may pay indirectly. To properly cal
| culate on the results that may work
out from these is where comes in the
great call for an exercise of intelligent
| thought