The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-12-06
THE Farm.
Farmers, Gardners, Horticuiturists,
airy and 0tockmen are requested to
Write for this Department.
The Grange.

agriculture generally in our country is
not prosperous. For the amount Of
capital and labor employed it pays the
smallest dividends. Not only are the
profits becoming less year by year, but
the capital shrinks.
If farming generally is prosperous,
why such items as the following now
81 frequently noticed:
The department of agriculture esti-
mates that the farm mortgages in Kan
sas amount to s79,00O,000. Commits
sioner Heath, of the Michigan bureau
of statistics, who has investigated the
subject, places the mortgages in that
state at 1928, 22o 5t3, paying an annual
interest of s9,451,s5l.
If farmers cannot hold their farms
without mortgages, how can they hold
them aoith mortgages? They are only
attempting to put off the evil day, and
are hoping for "the good time coming"
True it is that there are exceptions to
the general rule of Improbable agricul
ture. The farmer, who in other years,
when it did pay better, has accumu-
lated a surplus and has it safely loaned
out on interest to his neighbors, can
buy more manufactured goods with his
interest than ever before, and SO lives
and prospers. The farmer whose land
joins some city or village having a
sboom," can sell off his acres at specu-
lative prices and thrives. Others have
timber lots, coal and mineral privileges
that they sell to syndicates and corpor
atoms, and are happy. Still others live
near large cities aud good market, and
sell the products of field, orchard, gar
den and dairy direct to the consumer at
retail prices and make money, not by
farming or raising their products, but
selling them, or, in reality, they thrive
as merchants. But these favored ones
are the exception and not the rule.
Agriculture as depressed and it is be-
coming more SO year by year. Without
discussing the causes, if we are honest
with our class, we must acknowledge it.
The vast millions of increased wealth
in our country, year by .year, to which
political speakers point with patriotic
words, are largely produced upon our
farms, but do not remain there, but are
centering more and more in the great
cities and into fewer hands. 1t is now
said that $1,000 persons own more
wealth in our country than all the
other 100000. That one person in
each $4,000 owns as much as the other
24,999. Farmers are producing corn
wheat, cotton, cattle and hogs worth
millions OF dollars. Produced and sold
at loss to the average farmer. for he
is not holding his own, but making
millions for the transportation COM
panies and those who trade in the eek,
changes" and distribute it to the con-
sumers.
The conditions now surrounding the
average farmer of our country and
which have been combining for years
to take the "pay'' out of the occupa
ton for those who follow it, will sooner
or later be felt in the cities by MAUI
facturers, merchants and mechanics
Farmers are not only the greatest pro-
ducers, but they are also the greatest
consumers, and when farmers have
poor crops, poor prices and hard times,
manufacturers, merchants and mechan.
les must feel it in time. And the "sit.
uation" is commencing to attract atten.
ton outside of the farm. A city paper
lately contained the following item:
"We appreciate the conditions under
which the farmers are living and
through which prices have been de-
pressed for their products. 1t is time
to let up and give them an equal chance
in the strife of life.
"The farmer is prime factor in our
industrial life and we can't sit down
on him without injury to the whole.
Let US awake in time and equalize the
conditions of our industrial pursuits so
that each shall be protected and all be
blessed with the comforts aud rewards
which belong to every man who works
and earns"
The Grange has always understood
the matter, and truthfully and fairly
states the case in the Preamble to the
Constitution of the National Grange,
when it says:
"Individual happiness depends upon
general prosperity. The prosperity of
a nation is in proportion to the value of
Sc xroduok;oDo