The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-03-17
FROM YORK STATE.

YORKSHIRE, Cattaraugus Co., n. Y,
February 27, 1891.
Mr.. EDITOR: R:-Having passed through
a severe illness and resigned my position
in Auburn, N. Y, from which place
my last letter was sent, this day finds
me on my farm in Cattaraugus county,
where I expect to gain health, but no
money, during the coming season.
And it is a wild day. The wind
sweeps by on rapid wings, carrying in
it's arms great banks of snow that rise
and fall, and whirl away to find rest
ing place at last in some deep hollow.
My chores are done, but with every
lift of fork, or throw of shovel the old
problems that have perplexed me for
many a year, have been surging
through my brain, and the one great
question: ''a0by, for all the weary labor
of the year, for all the days spent turn
ing the sod or following the harrow,
scattering the seed, subduing the nox-
ious growth in the fields of corn and
potatoes, for all the days working in
the harvest field while the hot sun
scorches and burns the smarting flesh,
for the final gathering of autumn fruits
from vine and orchard, and the season
of chores in the dreary winter. Why
is there no corresponding recompenseY"
On our dairy farms we labor from 4
o'clock a m until darkness sweeps over
Cne hills; and for it all, each autumn
finds us deeper in the mire than when
we started
The one great question "why7" I
commenced to ask when my hands
held the plow, and the furrow curled
behind me, and when the harvest
yielded it's fruitage, the problem be-
came complex.
For my potatoes, my oats, my cheese
and butter, the buyer only offered me
rates that after paying my hired help,
my seed and fertilizer bills, left me
nothing to meet the taxes, and nothing
but experience for all my labor, and
| yet in the city few miles away, tired
workmen of the shops, weary toilers at
the forge, passing through to market
place when the days work was over,
beheld the same articles on exhibition,
but marked at prices which they could
not afford to pay, or buying which'not
a penny was left to lay by for rainy
day. In the autumn my orchards
were laden with fruit-the ground bios
somed with the luscious production,
but could not get enough money for ii
the gold Of Our mighty VnU street, tC
pay for the barrels, but in that same
city little children with wan faces and
pinched hands, dressed in tattered gar
ments would gaze eagerly at the fruit
spread on some old woman's market
table, and when asking the price there
of be told that apples are from one tc
five cents each. Between these two
points, one of production and pOUerty
the other of consumption and poverty
but few miles intervened, and this
distance was spanned by railroad
The market wagon of the past was
done away with. No more starting al
midnight with load Of produce fol-
the city 36 miles away, to be in the
market stall at day-break, and return
over the tiresome journey with a load
of goods for the country merchant, but
instead, a buyer at your door, rail
road station mile away, a car loaded
in twelve hours But thought what
of the former system of exchanges
With the slow journey and the seem
ingly clumsy methods, the debts of the
farmer steadily disappeared, the mort
gage gradually melted away, new build
ings replaced the old; the children
were educated first at the district schoo
then at the academy, some money was
always in the pocket enough for the
farmers needs.
1t is true that they swing the scythe
and the cradle, and slowly bound the
golden sheaves and threshed the graiI
with the rythmic swing of fails, but
with it all, there was plenty. I was
farming with the most improved ma