Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-08-23
GOOD TAR.ING PAYS

50 says the editor of the American Cult
va,or, and certainly no man IS better quail
fed to know whereof he speaks than The
! editor of the southern Cultivator. But it
must be farming with the hands aud the
head. done o. the farIa, and not farming
with the mouth performed al some cross
roads store or political barbecue.
But. says the writer. there is a kind Of
il fidelity. so 10 speak, among farmers,
which prevents not a few VINO might he
good farmers from making farming 4 first
class success. ii is want OF faith as TO
the prarticaoiiity of making their calling
profitable. i prevails today more eXten-
sively than ever before. and is undoubtedly
due to the sharper competition that the
farming business mas been subjected to, and
10 other causes that need not be named
here. The infection of this infdeity has
extended 10 nearly all Inc agricultural
press, more's the pity. and 1t is high time
that efforts be made 10 counteract il. If no
man other than the farmer himself talked
about the farmers hard lot, and about the
wrongs heaped upon him. and about hupos-
sihle remedies. farming as It Whole would
be paving far better than it is dom" at
present.
But good farming pays. "What do you
mean by good farming asks one.
Have YOU not yet learned what good
farming is, Do you regard agriculture as
IN unproeressive science or business that
remains the same while everything around
it changes If you see it IN that light then
your question is entirely in order. You do
not know what good farming IS.
IN agricultural implements and labor-sav-
ing machinery connected with farming
there has been astounding progress. But
this itself is not improved farming. 1t
only furnishes the means to make better
farming possible. In fact by eulargirg the
areas of land under cultivation, LABOR saving
farm implements are apt to make farming
poorer rather than better. And the great
difficulty with the farming business at
present is that American inventions in har-
vesting machinery have gone all over the
world. They are used in Australia, India
and on the plains of Russia almost as freely
rs by the farmers of our own country.
farming pays, something else might be put
III with mere good farming to make it pay
better That something else is personal
thought and skill. such Us has never before
been demanded in the farmers business.
The old idea OF farming, and for its time
the correct idea, was that it was mainly
hard work The method of farming ran in
i,f, oF
all he had to do was TO pull ahead. He need
not even plan. The. nut was all sufficient to
direct his course. The man who got up
earliest, worked hardest and longest, made
the most money. He was for these facts
the good farmer. and therefore successful.
Hard work never has been and never will
be entirely eliminated from tiIling the soil.
Ih0rns and thistles and weeds ii produces
as it always has done, ana it IS still in the
sweat of his brow that the soil tiller eats
his bread But we have relieved the
farmer from more toll than would once
have been thought possible, only it operates
pretty impartially upon farmers of all
classes. The better farming row needed
must be the individual work and thought
VI lile ldttIIeF UlNlSC!l. II lie CiLUDI l4du,
calculate and judge about the details of his
business, he is in no better shape for sue
cess than his unskilled competitors who
perhaps work harder and for less wages
than he.
1t must be admitted that all farming does
not pay. 1t is scarcely probable that farm
ing reckoned as a whole pays. This last is
sad thing to ponder over-a calling that
does not pay as whole. y calling in
which some men make money. but taken as
whole the calling is failure, Is there
no remedy for this state of affairs, The
writer thinks there is. L can not be found
II the way that many now propose-many
who are not themseIve farmers-but it must
be found in cheaper production secured by
the Intelligent employment OF improved