The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1891-04-03
QUESTIONS FOR FARMERS
Why Does Farming Not Pay?-Why Moves
the Alliance So Slowly?

'S NAo'So
the Alliance So Slowly?
In the great old empire state of New
York we saw fine farms with handsome
buildings, whose owners told US that in
the last ten years their farms had de-
%preciated one-third in value. and that
they would like to dispose of their old
homesteads and do something else, if
they only knew what to do, as no money
could any longer be made by farming,
while the taxes ven right on and were
leading to certain mortgage, and, in the
not distant future, the eventual loss of
their lands.
In the cities of the Empire state we
saw young men who We're farmers sons
seeking to fit themselves for bookkeep-
ers and shorthand reporters, or other
employment belonging to cities, which
they said they did not like and would
prefer to be Independent farmers as were
their fathers before them, but that farm
ing did not pay and they must find some
thing else to do and help keep the home
roof over the heads of their parents in
their old age.
We asked both the young men and the
men why these things were so, but none
of them could tell us why. We asked
them if their fields were worn and if
their soil was less fertile or the seasons
less favorable than in former days, and
they said, ''oh, no." We asked them
If they were less disposed to work than
ten years ago, and they said s'no," but
they realized so little from all their
toll. Yet in towns both east and west
we hear the people complain that
potatoes are 81 per bushel, and
many other eating stuffs in proportion.
Since the farmers did not know, we
thought we would ask the bankers. So
we asked two who were genial, gener-
Gus, kindly men in their families, and
lived in different cities, to tell us why
the farmers were complaining in this
manner and if it were time that the best
farming lands in the state were thus de-
Ireciated in value. And they said it was
time, and that tie land was deprecated
because of hard times. And one said the
hard times was due to not enough tar
if, and the other said it was due to too
much tariff, and both said the farmers
were hard up because they were all ex-
travagant and wanted pianos for their
children and nice buggies and furniture
the same as city people with lots of
money had; while both agreed that farm
ers did not need these luxuries and were
not a far-sighted class of men anyway.
So with all u inquiry we found no
one to clearly explain the problems TO us,
and we thought one thing the bankers
told us was true, i. e., that that the farm
ers are not a far sighted class of men any
Way. If they were they would find out
why things were thus, every mothers
son of them. And having found out
they would go to work to right them by
the might and power of the ballot;
standing by their broad acres and rs-
deeming them from a nations profigacy.
That sending their sons who love the
scent of sweet country grasses; the care
Of their gentle animals who repay their
kindness with docile affection; the
healthful and sturdy exercises whose
usages they have inherited; to compete
the scores of others for scanty earnings in
the noisy, busting, careless cities, where
q country boy is more easily lured to
ruinsome ways than are city boys who
are reared to know its temptations and
vices.
Why move the ranks of our Farmers
alliances so slowly? Why arc not more
scouts and heralds sent out from the
great army to stir up these discouraged
farmers and teach them till they shall
be able to tell why they suffer thus; till
they shall be wakened to the resolution
to stand shoulder to shoulder, from one
end of our broad continent to the other,
in the defense of the American farmers
and of the pure, sweet home life, so dear
to hearts of the bravest and best Of our
sons of toll.
How car q farmer in the face Of his
own statements of such facts be content
to patiently and YEARLY suck an old pipe
and say he don't know why things are
as they are, and divert himself and fam
lily through the long winter evenings
with a greasy old pack of cards, instead
of reading, and talking, and thinking,
and finding out about these things?
These are some of the questions we
wish the farmers themselves would
answer.-IdG r. Hunt In Advance
Thought,