Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-13
A SOUTHSIDE KICK.
An Earnest Demand Comes Up for
Rapid Transit Over There.
THE HORSE CARS ARE TOO SLOW.
Cooperation in Farming One of the Tend
encies of Modern Times.
HINTS FOB PENNSYLVANIA CHANGERS

/ !
as well, unknown on the Southside. Just
why that part of the city has been ignored
in this matter is a puzzle to some people.
There is evidently good opening over there
for one or two traction roads. Carson street
is admirably adapted to this system of loco
motion. The river route to Temperance
vile is another inviting field. The rapid
increase of population cannot be adequately
accommodated by the horse cars, and
| quicker way of moving about is urgently
demanded. Said Southside gentleman
! yesterday:
I'VE have outgrown the horse cars. They
are too slow to meet our requirements. We
need quicker transit very badly to enable us
| to get to our places of business without losing
time. The trip along Carson street in the horse
| cars is torture to a man in hurry. The COM
| pany does the best it can. but there are SO
many humps on the street that it is impossible
to make fast time. think the company would
make big strike by changing their plant to
traction road. This would result in another
advantage. 1t would attract population and
enhance the value of property. This is our
| greatest need, next to good water, and hope
we will soon find relief. Travel, I am conf
dent, would be heavy enough from the start to
make such road profitable. What 1 have said
are only hints but hope they will not fall on
dull ears"
Combination of capital, the absorption of the
individual in the company, is the tendency of
the times. One result of this has been to won
derfully cheaper nearly all the articles of daily
use on the farm. A steel plow that formerly
cost SIS can now be had for SIS. A steel mower
few years ago could not be had for less than
S65; now $40 will buy better one. A self
binder ten years back was S215; now much
more complete and durable machine can be had
for just one-half the price. The products of
the farm, too, have felt tho 4 eat fall in prices;
and farming conducted unG.f old methods, and
with antiquated tools, will not and cannot be
made profitable. Small tracts of land, owned
and worked by the family, with the oc-
casional help now and then Of one or two out
siders, can be made profitable, and in the hands
of deep thinkers and energetic workers made
unusually so, especially near large and reliable
markets. But only a few have these unusual
advantages.
In Germany, France and Belgium, it has been
discovered that very small tracts of land are
detrimental to the owners themselves and to
the best interests of those counties and steps
have been taken within the past few years to
enlarge, rather than contract areas. The
reason of this is simple enough: To farm
profitably at present requires labor-saving
machinery. A farmer owning fifty acres of
land, and having, say ten acres in wheat,
twenty-five in grass, and ten in corn, and the
balance IN garden, cannot afford to buy the i'm
proved tools to work these crops to the best
advantage. He labors under disadvantage at
once and to compete with wealthier neighbors,
has to work the harder with old tools, and
press into service his entire family, if he wishes
TO make a profit. The owner of 100 or more
acres is not much better off in proportion for
the plain reason that his capital is locked up
in land and tools, with rarely surplus to buy
for cash when necessaries are wanted. He
works land that needs fertilization to be made
productive. and with unskilled, uncertain and
high-priced labor to compete with, the pro-
ducts of the virgin soils of the Great West,
grown upon wide areas with the best ma
chinery, without manure, and then sent East
by rail at cheaper rates than we can deliver
them from our own lands, some twenty miles
away.
Cooperation, says an agricultural authority,
or the combination of a dozen more land
owners working under the supervision of a
single head and board of directors would be
found means of solving this difficulty and
ever-present problem. We have cooperative
cheese and butter factories that are profitable,
and have peen so for years. Our oranges,
founded upon much the same general plan,
have done great good in the same line of work.
The cooperative workingmen's supply stores
of London and Liverpool have been unusually
well managed. Their stock is double the par
value, and none to be had at that, and their
patrons enabled to get their supplies at the
lowest wholesale rates. and a dividend in the
bargain.
A cooperative farm company has been three
years in existence in England, and, though not
very successful still the projectors have re-
ceived higher wages than are paid on the sur
rounding estates, have lived better and feel
much encouraged to continue. Their work is
watched with much interest. The great advan.
tage of this means of farming will be seen at a
glance. Families could live contiguous; would
enjoy more the comforts of town life; have
better social advantages of church and school;
the land could be worked under an intelligent
system of cropping, and each owner having an
interest in the success of the undertaking,
would do what he knows how to do best under
one head Then, again, a large quantity of |
produce of good quality could be handled |
cheaper, better prices could be realized and |
the market taken advantage of. The best ma |
chinery could be had in quantity and at low |
prices.
The farming in England is mostly tenant |
farming, but in some respects this is a great |
advantage. The farmer pays rent, it is true, |
and it may be a high one, yet he leases his |
land on long time the permanent improve |
ments are paid by his landlord, and his indi- |
vidual capital is free to be used in working |
and feeding his crops to the very best ad- |
vantage. Having capital, he has opportuni- |
ties to buy or sch such as are of the utmost
value to him. With us we own our land, but
with little capital to work it. We thus are un-
der great disadvantage.
Put 900 acres under cooperative manage
ment. There would be little fencing, systema-
tized work, paying rotation of crops, and a
better class of work, as all would participate
in the success or failure of the scheme Co
operation is new to many, but it is destined, at
no distant day, to enter largely into our land
management-and that to the evident advan-