The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-10-24
SOME GOOD ADvICE TO FARMERS

Secretary OF Agriculture Rush has
written a very good article on the
present needs and future of agriculture,
in which he takes very hopeful view
of the prospects. He acknowledges that
the farmers have lately passed through
very hard times, and have suffered in
many ways, but he thinks the evils they
have undergone are now thoroughly un-
derstood and in a fair way to be cor
rected, and with the proper efforts on
their part agriculture can be made the
most profitable industry in this country.
He thinks that the farmers have not
been sufficiently informed as to the kind
and quality of articles we need for the
home market, which American agricul-
ture, properly directed, could produce,
but for which we are now de-
pendent upon foreign countries. General
Rusk is a strong advocate of our raising
everything we need and use. He be-
lieves in the capacity of this country to
raise all the sugar it requires, and has
strongly advocated action on its part to
bring about that result; indeed, the only
products about which he has any doubt
are coffee, tea and spices. All the other
articles we use can be raised in a country
with such varied climate and lands as
this. He wants our farmers to consider
this matter, and, instead of concentra
ting themselves on one or two crops, as
they do, to see what agricultural articles
we import and set about growing them.
He sums up his views on this subject as
follows:
When the time shall come that no agri-
cultural product which can be produced
in the United States shall be purchased
abroad when the fullest and latest infor
nation is available to all classes OF farm
ers in this country as to the crops of which
surplus can be readily marketed abroad,
and as to the extent of the demand for
such surplus; when every section of the
country is devoted to raising that which it
can raise best and cheapest, and which
commands ready and profitable sale;
when wise legislation has reduced the bur
dens of the farmer to the minimum and
has at the same time greatly enlarged
his opportunities; when diplomatic zeal
shall have been exercised to smooth the
way for the sale of our agricultural pro-
ducts in foreign countries with as much
earnestness as has heretofore been shown
for our manufacturing, mercantile and
financial interests; when our relations in
this respect, especially, have been extended
to the fullest limit, not only with the
countries of Europe but with those of
tropical America, and even OF
ASia-I am quite sure that the
scope of American agriculture will far
traasced any limits which my feeble pen
can depict ] say unhesItatingly that the
young men OF our country who Will bring
10 agriculture the education and iutelli-
gence. the industry and perseverance es-
sential to success in every career, whether
mercantile, industrial or professional,
Will, in the course of the next twenty
years attain far greater degree of mate
rial well-being on the average than awaits
them in any other calling. l believe that
twenty years from now the now almost
universal desire of youth resident in the
country to abandon il for the city will be
reversed, and that numbers of those
brought up and trained in city life will
look forward TO life in the country as the
most desirable. uniting the prospect OF
ample competence with independence,
health aud enjoyment.
There is a great deal of good common
sense in all that Gen. Rusk says, and
it is to be hoped that he can win the
farmers over TO his way of thinking.
instead of imagining that the difficult
ties that have overtaken agriculture
are to be cured BY ''the Ocala demands"
1t is. of course, impossible to correct all
these difficulties at once, but the cam
paign can be begun now and the con-
dition OF the farmers materially improv-
ed by following some Of the excellent
suggestions he makes