The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-07-18
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND FARMING.

1t is the hungry pigs that are always
squealing, and it is progressive, un-
intelligent, lazy farmers who insist that
farming don't pay" Poor farming
pays just as well as poor shoemaking,
DOOR carpentering and poor blacksmith
ing, But there never was time or place
when good farming really paid better
than it pays in New England now.
Some will say it paid bette: during the
war, and it is true that prices were NOM
inally much higher and sales of farm
products brisker, The rapid deprecia-
ton of the currency was very advan-
tageous to indebted farmers, who got
prices made by the new and inflated
conditions and could pay off their indebt-
edness in forty cent and fifty-cent dol
lars. Every careful farmer who did
this, and refused to go in debt for prop
erty at the inf itiun prices then current,
really did do better during the war than
he can do now. But the farmers who
were not in debt could make no use of
this opportunity to make one dollar do
The work of two in clearing off incum-
brances. They got good prices, but they
paid enormously fol- everything they had
to buv, and fair comparison between
those times and these will prove that we
can exchange our surplus products for
as much as then, and usually that of
better quality.
Farming on worn lands has got to the
point where knowledge, energy and bust
ness habits are required to make it a
success. Those farmers who do not
take the agricultural papers and study
them, who 90 to the circu', but not to
the agricultural meetings. are not all
getting along well. They never did get
along very well, but probably they are
getting along less well than usual, as
consumers can get better stutf than they
produce fromtheir neighbors who study
their ira e. In every town in New Eng
land there are farmers who are laying
up money, or paying of debts contract
e in starting. II some can d. this, why
not the rest? TIE same state Of things
exist in all other lines of busin, SO. In
Competent merchants, manufacturers,
m, CRANES, lawyers, doctors and preach
ers are all complaining that their occu-
patton don't pay, right alongside OF
others. with no better chance, who
seem to have no complaints to make.
As to the run out" farms, if they ever
we're good for anything they are good
now. Those fellows who have run off
after the pots of gold at the we t'rn end
of the rainbow never had enough get up
to them to seriously lnjure any good
land they happened to have here. We
know man who two years ago bought
one of these run QUIZ farms, and
last year cleared over $500 in cash ON
he potatoes he grew on part of il.
New England is lousy" with chances
for enterprising business farmers to do
az well on the land (and better) than
they can do with the same capital other.
wise invested East or West We have
got the markets right here, and though
our railroad managers have not all o
them got as much sense az they ought
to have, in regard TO encouraging the
farmers by low rates to grow larger
crops for shipment, they are probably
as sensible in their ways rs the average
farmer is in his.
The state assessors of New Yolk say
that Everywhere farm laud is depreciat.
ing in value, while city property is con-
stantly approaching. II do not see, !"
says one of the ass essors, "dny way in
which improvements may be expected.
No one wants to buy farm lands because
no one can get their money out Of them.
In few years you will see m0Ie tenant
farmers than anything el,e" He went
on to say that the New York farmere
could not compete with tho West This
is the case not only in the grain and
cereals, but in dairy products. Western
butter now gets the best of tie trade in
New York city, where but few years
ago the hCme producers had monopoly
This is said 10 be true of the Mohawk
valley counties-where are the great
dairy producers of the State-as well as
the cereal counties of Western New
York and the mountainous counties OF
the northern part of the State. But now
why can not New York farmers COM
pete with the West Hundreds-ye4,
thousands-Of them certainly are doing
30. We personally know farmers in
IN every New England State and in New
York who are making money right along
in farming, and. they have no advantage
whatever oven their groaning neIghbOrs,
except that they have taken pains to
learn their trade we'll and to keep up
with the times.
Farming is different thing from what
1t used to be, but no more different than
shoemaking, railroading, merchandising,
newspaper publishing, and nearly every.
thing else. How long would even a
country newspaper live If run on the
lines of the country newspaper of forty
years ago ? 1t is just go with farming.
The time has come when old ways are
being dropped and new and better ways
adopted in every line of business, 1t
must be so in farming. This abandon
ment of the farms for the cities is mere.
ly temporary. Every kind of city occu-
patton is to-day more overdone End