The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1892-03-25
Co.operatiye Farming.

The day OF individual effort is past. The
times and changed conditions are demand
ing cooperative effort. When farm wages
we're 40 cents day wheat 80 bushel, corn
90 cents, good COW SIC, calico 10 to 10
cents a yard and other goods at correspond
ing prices, times were better for all, because
all found employment, and production and
distribution went hand in hand. But now
ell these conditions have changed and pro-
ducers and employers must change TO
conform 10 present conditions. The best
labor deserts the country for the city hoping
to find more prosperous field, but in this
they fail. Bright young fellows can get
but $3 and $4 week in the city and il costs
all of that to support them. The railroads
and other corporations pick out the very
best, and send ten adrift where one is en-
ployed. When the country is abandoned
for the city the door is closed behind them
and few are able 10 return, and step by step
they sink lower into the depths of want.
The great changes which artificial power
and invention have worked in the last so
years have destroyed the indiyiduals ability
10 compete in price, and in SO doing have
multiplied production tenfold which has
thrown labor out of employment. Labor
used to own its tools and create the products
Of the land and shop. Artificial power and
invention haye taken the tools from labor,
and owning the tools a few own the products
which machinery and artificial power create,
and vast numbers of laborers have no en-
ployment. Everything therefore tends to
force labor toward cooperation in order
that ii too may produce cheap and enjoy
larger portion Of its products. The farmer
has chung TO his old methods longer than
any other producer but the time has come
when combinations of spectators have
taken charge of his products, set the price
Of them and supply him with tools and
merchandise at their own price. In trying
to stand alone against such formidable
forces, he is being oyerwhelmned. He must
reform his expensive methods and save
much which now goes to waste. The ex-
pense and unavoidable waste TO conduct one
farm by the present individual method en-
pioyed, under a proper cooperative system
would do the work oftwo or three.
Farmers like every other class of business
men must study along the lines Of co-opera-
five labor and establish their business on
that system or sink to lower plane Of
society and dependence. They cannot stand
alone and resist the fearful odds that are
against them. They may hug their foolish
conceit and say, "Oh, am independent.
am capable of attending to my own bus
iness.7 He may, if entirely clear of debt,
keep his head above water while he liyes,
If he does not live too long, but where will
his children be? The inevitable future his
present condition leads 10, ought to be con-
sidered and measures taken to prevent the
tenant and wage slavery, degradation and
want present conditions point to for the
next generation.
The idea of the forty acre farm and the
tnuepehuehs laIm eT, tue Hills idIm we'll
titled is bit Of pastrol poetry, an idle
dream, that may be realized by one in
hundred, and for limited time, but must
soon be swallowed up by the great octupus
of capital. The large tract conducted on
true cooperative principles is the only hope
ofthe farmer to escape the condition of the
European peasant. What American farmer
would live as the French peasant farmer on
patch Of 4 acres cultivated by himbelfand
wife with hand tools? And this is what
the small farm and SO called independent
farmer leads to. Either this or the renter
under land lord who owns hundreds of
farms, as in ireland and England.