The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1891-11-12
Country and City Incomes.

Nobody who understands the facts can
doubt that farmers in this country deserve
the good will and help of men of all
other occupations. The foundations Of
all our business enterprises are built on
our own agriculture. 1t is particularly
so under the operations of the protec""e
tariff which prevents lis from engaging
extensively in foreign commerce or doing
business on the high seas. No sound or
safe structure can be built on rotten
foundations. If the farmers are poor or
oppressed or working at loss it will be
only matter of time when there must
be general crash.
1t is, therefore, a matter of serious and
practical interest for people OF all sec
tious, occupations and positions whether
the business of farming is so poor IN
promise or rewards that it cannot be
continued pro6tably and whether farmers
will be forced from their farms to seek
some other means of living in such NUNS
bers as to diminish the agricultural pre-
ductions of the country.
It is matter very hard to decide. The
farmer is told that his business is the
most poorly paid of all, that the oppres'
sion and hardships of our whole CONNER
cial system is concentrated against him,
that all other occupations are more hope.
full and generally better than his, until
he comes to believe it. This is one OF
the facts explaining the steady drift of
population from the rural districts to the
cities.
The truth is, the average farmer thinks
he is poorly off because he takes compsr-
atiyely little account of the matters OF
house rent and food for himself and
family, which with people in the cities
are Of first Importance. The farmer who
make ten bales of cotton, for instance,
sells them and finds that their entire
proceeds are used in paying what be owes
! for supplies and clothing thinks he has
lost years work. He has handled only
about four hundred dollars and mas seen
! it all 20 and he is supposed to envy the
mechanic who earns two or three dollars
day and to regard the clerk, book
keeper or lawyer who receives from a
thousand to two thousand dollars year
in clear cash as q rich man. He does not
stop to reflect that each of these people
has really done only what he did-sup'
port his family and come out even or
nearly even at the end of the year. The
rent of a very modest city house-the
mere roof to cover man and his family
from the weather-is nearly as much as
the total living expenses of the small
farmer, representing from three to i've
bales of cotton. The food of an ordinary
city family compelled to live from The
store is as much more. Clothes cost
more because in town more of them are
needed; fuel is q large item in town
while in the country it is virtually moth
ing. A servant hired and boarded rep
resents easily three bales of cottan'
When all is figured out and paid, the city
man, working every day in the year and
bound down to minutes by the CLOCK, at
a hundred dollars month usually con
graduates himself if he comes out free OF
debt sitter spending every cent he has
made. Yet he does not regard himself
as having been oppressed, degraded or
spoiled. Nine. tenths of men in the
towns who can support their families in
decency and comfort and carry life insur'
ance enough 10 prevent want in case OF
death think themselves lucky. In cities
as in the country, those who accumulate
some money and have more of it than
they actually iced are the few.
We believe if the average farmer would
estimate the value of the support of him
self and his family IS the average town
resident does, he would find himself not
30 badly off after all-that if he would
count his time and labor and the practl'
cal results from them as mechanics,
clerks, merchants and professional men
are forced to do, and weigh advantages
and disadvantages, losses and gains he
would be less discontented with his own
lot than he is generally disposed to be-
GreenriNe NeWs.