Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-06-06
PROFITS IN FARMING.
pEMAeoelc PERFORMERS" MUST
CHANGE THEIR TUNE.


Western Farmers Prospering-How Their
Profits Compare with the Eastern
Tradesman and Standardization
Helps Agriculture.
Western farmers are getting tired OF |
playing the part of ''horrible example"
in the ''reformer's" stump speeches.
Youthful eastern demagogues, who never |
saw a western farm, are dashing of !
awful descriptions of the miseries in
ficted by the tariff upon the west, while
the farmers themselves are producing !
facts and figures to show that they can
get along very well without any of the
''reformer's" sympathy. Anything can
be overdone, and western farming has
been no exception. The Des Moines
News says:
"The price of Iowa lands is advancing
The long stagnation of sales and depre-
citation of values has given place to an
active demand for lands and substantial
advance in values Lands about Nor
walk, in Warren county, are now selling
from fifty to sixty dollars per acre. Some
Ohio parties have recently refused $22.
per acre for wild eighty in Buchanan
county. Sixteen dollars per acre have
recently been refused for wild lands in
Dallas county. Substantial advances are
also reported from southwestern Iowa.
The advance will average five dollars
per acre for the state There is no
county in the state where the stagnant
and deprecated land market is not TAX
ing on an active tone with better prices"
Mr. j. +. Meats, a practical farmer of
Montgomery county, Kan, shows that
farming in that state is as profitable as
any other business in the country. He
gives detailed statement of the cost of
raising forty acres of corn, calculates
the amount realized, and shows that the
farmers profit on the capital invested is
no less than % per cent. Here are his
figures: Rent, 500; blowing, $40; har-
rowing, $40; seed, S.; planting, $40; cul-
tivating, $45; husliing, $40; Smelling,
$1240; marketing, $40; total cost of pro-
ducing, $3O2.40. Yield, 40 bushels to the
acre; price % cents per bushel-$352.
To this is added 80 cents per acre for the
stock pasture, which brings the receipts
up to 1872, and leaves him net profit
of $6960
But these figures do not include nearly
all the income Of an average farmer.
Off this forty acres there are sold in the
meantime butter and eggs to the value
of perhaps $780, besides poultry and
probably orchard and garden products
to a considerable amount.
When the income and expense of the
eastern mechanic or tradesman, with the
same amount of capital, are compared
with these figures, the hollowness of the
''reforlner's" croakiDgs becomes even
more apparent Practically all the farm
er's income is net profit. The mechanics
or bridesmaids profits do not appear till
the years house rent and a hundred
other family expenses for comforts en-
joyed by the farmer without expense
are deducted from his income. When
the farmer wants to attend a funeral,
for instance, he bitches his own horses
on to his own carriage and goes. The
other pays ten dollars for carriage.
Potatoes, meat, green vegetables, fruit,
eggs, butter bread and numberless ar
ticles of food must be purchased at a
good round price by the dweller in the
city, and the purchase money deducted
from his income, before a proper basis
is reached for comparison between his
and the farmers profits. These facts are
always carefully concealed by the ire
former For the past twenty years"
writes Mr.. Meats, Il have carefully
kept an account Of my business and of
all its details. l began with very little,
and whatever l have accumulated is the
result of Iowa farming. have kept my
ledger and cash book, and each year has
shown q goodly increase, either in the
value of my plant or my cash account"
1t is safe to assert that no protected
robber" in the whole country can say as
much of his business. The progress and
increase of wealth in the western states
belle the assertion that tariff legislation
has been prejudicial to western agricult-
ure and in favor of the manufacturing
states.
A Scotch manufacturer Moves to America.
After the passage of the new tariff bill
Mr.. James Patson, Of tombstone, Scot
land, discovered that the high grade
shoe laces which his firm had been ex-
porting extensively to the United States
could not prOftably get into our mar
kets over the new duties, so he followed
the example of many other foreign man
ufacturers, and started Il factory on this
side of the ocean. Naturally, he selected
the place in which another Scotch firm
had already located, Messrs. Finlayson,
Bousfield & Co., linen thread manufact-
urers, and secured mill at North Graf
ton, Mass. The new establishment will
now supply US with American shoe laces,
formerly purchased in Scotland with
good American money. That money will
now stay at home to gladden. the hearts
of the two hundred OF three hundred
persons employed in the new industry,
and to boom the trade of the grocers,
dry goods merchants and other Ameri-
can q IS with whom the earnings OF
the Wig people will be spent.