The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-10-30
WANTED: PROGRESSIVE ADAPTA-
RIIITY.

BlLIIHs
A gentleman recently drove thirty or
forty miles in contiguous county, and
made a memorandum of the occupied and
unOccupied farm houses that he passed.
He discovered that three-eights of the
houses were unoccupied. This is start
ling statement, and seems incredible;
but if readers who ride much in the
country outside of the most fertile sec
tions will take notes, we greatly fear
that similar result will be reached
The causes that have contributed to
this untoward result are various, and per-
haps western competition is the most
potent. Formerly fat cattle and poultry
were a staple source of revenue to thou
sands of farmers in this section. They
would take meat or poultry to market,
and with the proceeds of its sale buy dry
goods, hats, shoes, clothing, groceries
and other articles of comfort or luxury
Now car loads of western beef, turkeys
and other varieties of poultry supply the
majority of eastern markets, and our far
mers suffer from the competition.
They find much that they used to turn
off the farm most profitably now hard
to sell and the price discouragingly low
besides. Consequently, complaint is
common, and so is the abandonment of
farms. OF all things, such condition
of affairs was least anticipated. We have
always been taught that agriculture was
the one great Indispensable industry to
which all Others are subsidiary, and that
farmers were the most independent
people on earth. But the laws of COM
petition, evolution and revolution effect
the farmer as well as the artisan. No
occupation is beyond the vicissitudes of
progress and retrogressiOn; certain
sympathetic chord makes all employ
ments subject to the general law of ups
and downs.
The farmers opportunities are not
oblterated by the changes wrought. He
has only to make sharp turn out of the
old ruts, and study adaptability. If he
has been in the habit of fattening cattle,
and it pays better to keep hens, or to
raise vegetables, or to establish milk
route, let him make the change. He
should study the stock that it pays best
to raise; the methods most likely to prove
effective.
The farmer must consider that he suf-
feTs no more than the tradesman in the
change of conditions. If he cannot make
a living by the policy which was profitable
twenty years ago, neither can the mer-
chant. More and more the great store is
obliterating the little ones-the daring
advertiser driving to the wall those who
falter at the expense incurred. The
wholesale dealer who formerly sat in his
office and entertained visiting buyers for
more than a hundred miles about would
soon starve if he depended upon retailers
who came to him. Now lie is obliged to
employ commercial travellers. and meet
with competitions of the most varied and
exasperating nature. Rivals will offer
certain articles as leaders at cost or
less, or date bill long way ahead, to
rob him of a good customer. A drum
mer' will be extravaganza in his expenses,
and ifdischarged perhaps take a hundred
patrons over to hated competitor. The
same is true of newspaper. They could
be conducted remuneratively twenty
years ago on lines that would make their
death inevitable in six months now.
Many mechanics and experts find their
occupation supplanted by labor-saving
machinery, and they must master the
machines or fall to the rear. Thousands
of compositors, for instance, are confront
ing this problem to-day through the
advent of the linotype.
We hint at these instances merely to
show the farmer that he is no worse off
than his urban neighbors. With him
apd them opportunities are as tempting
as ever, only a progressive adaptability
is required. We reiterate and emphasize,
in the hope of awakening dazed laggards
and faultfinders, that the one great need
to-day of the unsuccessful workers of
the world, agricultural and other, is
progressive adaptability.-TrOy Press.
"A Charge That Scattered. Gross
eyed Man, in crowd: You've got my
umbrella, sir!
Fourteen men, simultaneously and
somewhat cOnfusedly: Who? Me?