The Springdale news., 1889-08-23
THE FARMER'S LOT.
It IS Not Fad aS some DisgruntIcd
 Fellow. Try to Paint It.

It IS Not as Bad some DisgruntIcd
 Fellow, Try 10 Paint IL.
 My investigations lead me to the conclusion that there is good ground tor tho frequent complaint of made quate rev,..- from farming. But, after all low prices arc not unprecedented. Fur instance in lSl9 my father picked up forty dairy cOws one on two in place. and the highest price for the best of tho herd was $1l l remember when corn sold at 10 to ID cents a bushel oats at < ccntS, eggs at ccnts a dozen and butter at cents pound. The average price of wheat in my local market was very rarely Sl a bushel, and for corn about AS cents During the past four years wheat has aver aged about 75 cents, and corn not far from 40 cents. find that groceries, wooden goods and boots and shoes cost very nearly the same thirty years ago as now, but calico. muslins, nails and hardware were from 25 to 50 per cent. higher then than now, and salt cost twice as much. While dollar will purchase more of the ncccssaries oi life now than then, it requires about a third moro grain to bring us that dollar. On tho other hand, so far as the labor is concerned. we can raise and market the bushcl of ain cheap AM, for invention, railroads and i'm proved highways have increased tho power of muscle. TO illustrate: II frequently took two men and two horses a day to mark out ten acres ol corn land for planting and from two to four men another day to plant it. Now with d check-rOwer in a large field one man will plant without mark ing twenty acres or more in a day; or if it must bo marked one way and checked by the lever, the farmer with his thrco-row slcd-marker can mark twenty-five acres or more in a day and two men can plant twenty acres.
 The cost of a marker which will last many years is only $2 to S}, and of a frst-class planter S32 and about SIP extra for the checkrow attachment with 80 feet Of wire. Formerly in heavy or lodged grass it was a hard days work for a man to now an acre, while now with a machine costing but $45 the farmer cuts with ease to himself and his team nearly.an acre an hour. and will save the cost of his machine in cutting less than 100 acres In putting in and harvesting crop of small grain the expense has not been re- duced so much, but is considerably less than formerly, while the grain is all saved, whereas enough used to be wasted to pay for harvesting. The ex- pense of marketing has in the aggre- gate been reduced by railroads and bringing the markets to the farmers door. Tho building of turnpikes and multiplication of bridges enables the farmer to take twice as much at load as was possible in former days. There are men in my neighborhOod who can market 150 to 200 bushels of wheat a day, drawing it from their farms to the railway station, who in the early times spent ten days with a four horse team taking forty bushels to Cincin- natl, their nearest market The farmer out of debt and whose crops arc as good now as formerly can look se- renely at the situation; but those who allowed their land to run down so that in addition to low prices there are also small yields or who are carry ing q heavy load of debt-even they might be worse off. Waldo F. Brown, in N '. Tribune