The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1891-02-19
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vored- railways, sturdy and enlight-
ened people, superior educational sys-
tenn and the largest school fund in the
Union, thriving cities and towns, live
and energetic press, and broad and well
laid foundations of statehood.
We believe in encouraging immigra-
tion to such state by legislative, indi-
vidual or community aid, but what is
quite as important is encouragement to
those already here. We have achieved
much, but there is unrest. The state can
help restrain and quiet this restless
ness through institute work and associ-
ated efforts, by showing the Importance
. of Investigation and rotation, the util-
ization of materials and forces now
wasted, by the dissemination through the
press Of new ideas combined with old
and economical methods.
81 1t is freely asserted that the general
condition of agriculture is not good
indeed it is claimed that affairs in the
country are going from bad to worse,
while extremists and alarmists make it
about as bad as It can be. All sorts Of
reasons for this condition are alleged.
Some have laid it at the door of the
tariff, others to the banking system. and
so on through long list of ills, but the
main charge is that it is due to legisla-
tive favoritism to corporate interests,
combined with the extortionate and rep
rehensible conduct of corporations in
general, but of railways in particular.
The fact is either forgotten or ignored
that the railways depend more upon the
prosperity and success of farming COM
munities for support than upon any
other source. The best paying roads and
those upon which rates are the least, are
those which traverse the thriftiest agri-
cultural regions, and vice versa.
Laws Can't Cure All Ills.
Railroads, for apparent reasons, desire
the building up, not the breaking down,
of any interest-the farming interest in
particular. The politicians plan of sal
walton for the farmers who have failed
(and unfortunately they have succeeded
in causing large number of respected
and worthy citizens to accept their
theories) is legislation. No railway cor
poration can well object. and the least
possible number will object, to fair
system of legislative regulation and re-
striction; but they may well complain
of measures whose authors are really
ignorant of the subject they profess to
know so much about; whose provisions
are unwise, unjust, and positively
dangerous, and which, if carried into
effect, would prove destructive. A war
upon any one of the institutions of the
country is harmful to every other.
Many people like to believe that they
can secure prosperity without earning
it. Once in thousand times it is done,
perhaps, but every one knows that the
rule is that s'There is no excellence
without great labor, a maxim as true
as it is old. The successful men of the
country are those who have depended in
the main upon their own efforts; who
have lost but little time in the considera-
ton of visionary schemes or in running
after rainbows or politicians, who know
and care next to nothing of the theories
and opinions of modern social reformers,
laboragitators and breeders of discon.
tent, and who at all times and under all
circumstances have made the most of
situations and conditions.
Farmers Need Not Live in Poverty.
Farmers are not and cannot be made
exceptions to the general law. There
are all over the country farmers who
are prosperous; they are to be found by
hundreds in Minnesota and the Dakotas;
men who are well qualified for their
calling, are confident of the future, who
are today ahead, have something in the
old stocking leg, and who are not COM
planning nor grumbling. They don't
wait for chances, they make them, and
obey the injunction: Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy might" They live in the
same community where other farm
ers are in debt, in distress and discon-
tented. They pay the same tariffs as
their neighbors; are subject to the same
'tyrannical" restrictions; till the same
kind of soil; buy and sell in the same mar
kets, and receive only the same favors
and enjoy only the same natural privi-
leges. Why are they prosperous and
their neighbors unthrifty? If farming
is not profitable in Minnesota and the
Northwest is it not because of the mis-
takes of the farmers2 The country is
adapted very peculiarly to this pursuit. In
the main it is rich and productive; it may
be if it were less 80 it would be better,
but its citizens must not depend too
much on the country, per Sc, to make
them prosperous. The country says, to
paraphrase an old couplet:
I give you shelter in my breast;
Your own stout hands must win the rest.
And stout hands, willing hearts and
clear heads WILL win the rest, and
prove that farming In the West can be
made more profitable than anywhere
else.
A Combination That Always Wins.
Industry and common sense in equal
parts applied together will accomplish
the result desired. It is not the man
who works the hardest but who works
the best that accomplishes the most in
the end. 1t is not always the best edu-
Gated who are the best farmers. Many
collegian and many graduate from
the agricultural college has failed as
farmer, while in the same pursuit many
another man who has been entirely
successful could scarcely write his own
name. The methods of the one were
largely theoretic; those of the other
practical and based on common sense.
This is an age of progress. There have
been many improvements in farming
methods, but at the same time there are
certain old methods and practices which
have been discontinued merely because
they were old, not because they were
supplanted by better-indeed nothing
as good has been substituted in their
stead. There was a time when
farming paid and that was when
those old methods were in use.
A good idea founded on sound princi-
pies is everlasting. and blending of
some of the old practices with new ones