Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1890-05-31

both ends meet.
We are blessed with a lot of sapient
advisers who waste much ink in tell
ing us to quit growing so much grain
and meat, and turn our attention to
dairy, orchard, garden and other
minor products, never for moment
rejecting that were their advice acted
upon, the markets for such products,
now bad enough in all conscience,
would be irretrievably ruined, and
grain grower, orchardist, dairy farm
er and all be worse off than now. 1t
is not an increased production of any
class of farm crops or animals that
we need, but very decided increase
in the number of consumers who
must, from their location among us,
buy the products Of our farms rather
than those of India and Russia.
This well-meant advice, unfortu-
nately, many of us must for time
ignore and continue to employ both
land and labor in Inc production of
grain and meats which are now in
such excessive supply; but it was not
always thus and such conditions will
not always continue, although there
is hard and difficult journey to be
taken before we can expect to reach
the haven of rest, which is assuredly
plainly in sight of the hard worked
and poorly paid farmer who has not
so far to travel to regain the broad
highway to prosperity as he has
strayed from it in his blind wander
ings, having already retraced more
than half the distance just as uncon-
sciously as he diverged from the safe
path. Yet the conditions and envi.
ronment of our national, social and
economical life have been such that
the results, so much to be deplored
so disastrous to many an industri-
Gus, frugal household, are but the
natural and inevitable outgrowth o.
our own acts.
Given the same conditions of a ra-
pidly increasing, restless, energetic
population, and practically unlimi'
ted area of fertile land, free as the ali
we breathe, and just the same results
would again follow.
1t can certainly do no harm, anC
may do much good, by encouraging
those who have become weary ant
disheartened, to look backward owe
the way we have travelled and Sc
just where is the pitfall which we diC
prepare for our own undoing, ant
how we came to tumble bodily int
it.
Investigations extending over sew
eral years, and begun without an,
} theory to support, and with NOR
or less pronounced belief that tn
unsatisfactory condition of the farm
er was attributed to combination {
, many causes, mostly abstract or OF
| scure, has led irresistibly to the cor
clusiOn that the present depression
! wholly and purely agricultural, orig
mated supported and prolonged solel
, and naturally by the farmer, and b
him alone, and he has no one bl
himself to thank for the unhapp
; conditions under which he now pu
sues his calling. l say this unhes
. tatingly, with a clear view Of m
= own share in the transactions leadin
i up to this state Of affairs.
DO not let US longer try to shift Il
responsibility to other shoulders,
. it is neither manly nor right to do S
as at the most the causes usually a
signed for this state of depression a
but auxiliary, or secondary, as wi
be seen when we look back over Il
course we have taken in the la
- twenty-five years.
i In such retrospective view as
v proposed, we shall not only find tn
IS the farmer has caused all, or near
If all, the difficulties which now enN
W ron his way, but see reason for d
$. string but moderate yields of most
W the staple crops in the immediate f
re- ture. / think such a review, viii
re- enabling us to see the direct cause
If this period of depression, will al
IS clearly indicate its duration and t
manner of its termination, viii
r. will result, as did the depressio
re from the operation Unnatural agenci
re wholly beyond our control, al
in which we can hardly modify.
of 1t is neither desirable nor prac
4. cable that our Looking Backward
g. should extend over so long peri
n as does that of Edward Bellam