The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-01-14
SUCCESSFUL FARMERS.
The Chimerical Schemes of
Demagogues Will Not
Better Their Con
dition.

Sensible Advice by the Lead
ing Agricultural News
| paper of the North
west.
If we believe the political pa
pers, nobody is now the object of
such tender solicitude as the
| farmer. He gets advice from
. everywhere. The general idea
seems, to be that he is a very sick
man, and many farmers have been
told that they are very sick men
SO frequently that they half believe
it, though able to be about, and,
in fact, feeling quite as lively as
usual. Like every other sick man,
his friends all prescribe for him.
| This one thinks he has dyspepsia
and prescribes whiskey; that one
diagnoses the disease as consump-
ton and thinks cod liver oil the
4 thing; another thinks the 'rheu-
matiz has got hold'' and begs
him to try St. Jacobs Oil, and so
on through the list of kindly dis
4 posed and well-meaning friends.
If the farmer belives all his friends
say and takes all the medicines
i they prescribe, he will soon be a
dead man; but if he will conclude
that little attention to diet, to al
low nature time to restore itself,
will do more good than all the
medicines, he will recover. The
farming business has been pre-
for BY quacks for years.
They have laid want Of success at
the door Of monopolies, trusts,
railroads and tariffs. It is easy to
/ charge the want of success to some
body or something else, but it is
hard to take it home and admit
that we might have done better
ourselves. If any farmer who be-
lleves that all outside influences
combined can prevent him from
making money, will sit down with
a pencil and paper and make an
estimate Of what too high railroad
charges cost him every year, and
what damage he suffers from
trusts and monopolies of all sorts,
and how much the tariff gets out
of him, he will be surprised to find
how very little they can possibly
affect his business. There is no
reason why they should be allowed
to affect it at all, and all these
evils should be scotched, but at
the worst they can affect the in
come and expense Of the farmer
but few dollars annually, while
bad management on the farm,
halfway work in the cultivation of
crops, wasteful feeding, scrub
stock, worn out fields, and general
lack of head work may rob him of
half his income and all his profits.
The fact is, the world has been
making progress, every year, in
methods Of production on farms.
The manufacture of food, like
other manufacturing processes, has
| been cheapened. The farmers
who have been progressive have
found out the best methods and
. have made money. Those who
have logged on in the old way,
now wake up to find they are do
ing a losing business, and at once
Jump at the conclusion that some,
body outside Of themselves, has
played the mischief with the
world. Between old-fashioned
methods and loss of fertility il
their lands, they are in hopeless
condition, and the only thing left
is to mortgage the farm for as
much as possible to an eastern
money king" and pull out fol
! new western land that still has its
virgin richness. It takes more
brains and closer figuring to make
money at farming now than it die