The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-11-05
COUNTRY AND CITY INCOMES.
The Farmer Has Many Advantages over
the Man in the City as to the Cost
of Living.
1Greenville News.

[Greenville News.
Nobody who understands the facts
can doubt that farmers in this country
deserve the good will and help of men
of al! other occupations. The founda-
tions of ali our business enterprises are
built on our own agriculture. 1t is
particularly so under the operations of
the protective tariff which prevents us
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 mat
ter of time when there must be a gen.
eral crash.
1t is, therefore, a matter of serious
and practical interest for people of all
sections, occupations and positions
whether the business of farming is so
Door in promise or rewards that it can
not be continued profitably and
whether farmers will be forced from
their farms to seek some other means
of living in such numbers as to dimin-
ish the agricultural productions of the
country.
1t is a matter very hard to decide.
The farmer is told that his business is
the most poorly paid of all, that the
oppression and hardships of our whole
commercial system is concentrated
against him, that all other occupations
are more hopeful 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
comparatively little account of the
matters of house rent and food for him
self and family, which with people in
the cities are of first Importance. The
farmer who makes ten bales of cotton,
for instance, sells them and finds that
their entire proceeds are used in paying
what he owes for supplies and clothing
thinks he has lost a years work. He
has handled only about four hundred
dollars and has seen it all 60; 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 pollars year in clear cash as
a rich man. He does not stop to re-
fleet that each of these people has
really done only what he did-support
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 a man and his family
from the weathcr-is nearly as much
as tie total living expenses Of the
small farmer, representing from three
O five 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 large item
in town while in the country it is vir-
tually nothing. A servant hired and
boarded represents easily three bales of
cotton. When all is figured out and
paid, the city man, working every day
in the year and bound down to min
utes by the clock, at hundred dollars
a month usually congratulates himself
if he comes At free of debt after spend
ing every cent be 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 insurance enough
to 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 need are the few.
We believe if the average farmer
would estimate the value of the support
of himself and his family as the aver
age town resident does, be would find
himself not so badly off after all-that
if be would count his time and labor
and the practical results from them as
mechanics, clerks, merchants and pro-
fessional men are forced to do, and
weigh advantages and disadvantages,
losses and gains he would be less dis
contented with his own lot than he is
generally disposed to be.