The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-08-15
ADVICE TO FARMERS.

farmers, and I know of none that is SO
little benefited. have never seen a
man in any of the walks of life but who
thought he could tell the farmer exact
ly what he needed, and just how to
plow and plant SO as to reap a rich har-
vest and enrich himself at the same
time.
The merchant, the lawyer, the rail
road magnate, the artizan, the me
chanic, the doctor. the MINISTERIAL
give him word of good advice, and
yet he is still poor; and the world
can't, for their lives, tell the reason
why. They see teeming fields Of grain,
they see cattle, sheep and horses on a
thousand hills; they see millions of
bushels of grain going to market, and
millions of hogs being slaughtered
every year for market; they see rail
roads and steamboats, loaded with the
produce of the farm; they see cities
growing rich handling the farm prod
ucts; they see the merchants, mechan
les, lawyers and doctors growing rich,
and they can't see why it is that the
man who makes all this does not reap
some of the golden harvest; they see
him at forty or fifty years of age
broken down man, while the men in
other pursuits of life are in their prime
at this age; they see his face shrunken,
his brow furrowed with care, his limbs
stiffened with rheumatism, and they
think there must be something wrong
about his management, that there must
be a great leak somewhere ano in the
goodness of their hearts they try to
help the poor farmer. They tell him
he goes to town too often; that he
leaves his plows and horses exposed 10
the rain; that he must read more good
books and agricultural papers; that he
must keep an account of all his busi
ness; that he must have shop where
he can work on rainy days; that he
must get better stock and take better
care of them, must build sheds to pro-
tect his stock, must cut his hay early,
must eradicate all noxious weeds, must
push his work and not let his work
push him This and much more good
advice has been given the farmer, and
yet his condition is not improved.
Good men have formed agricultural
societies, have published books and
papers. Men who had energy and
brains and wealth; men who had sue
ceeded in everything they undertook,
formed national societies, spent money
and time to help the farmer improve
his condition, and yet in this they failed.
The farmer never improved, he still
rode to town in his farm wagon. He
had no buggy or carriage, his clothes
were coarse, he had none of the luxur-
les and but few of the comforts of life;
and the world wondered why this was
so.
Well, think I know why all of this
is so. Why the farmer and his wife
are old at forty years of age, broken
down in health and spirits, and why
they have no time to do all the nice
things that the world advises them to
do; why he and his family toll four
teen hours each day in heat and cold,
wet and dry, so that they are broken
down when they should be in their
prime.
The cause is this and only this: The
price that farmer gets for the product
of his labor is just sufficient to keep
soul and body together, so he has no
time for anything save work, work;
and the only reason they have not
bankrupted long ago is that no one will
credit those who go in debt, and pru-
dent ones simply live on less when
hard times come; and if a drouth such
as this year comes on them, why they
lust tighten the belt one more hole and
eat less, patch the old clothes and
make their own shoes nights and rainy
days.
If the commercial and manufacture
ing world had to stand the losses year
after year that the farmer does, they
would soon be wreck. It is cit ler
too much or too little rain; either
drouth or food. Then comes the cater
pillar, the chinch bug, the cotton
worm, the storms, the hail, the muir
rian, the sheep rot, the cattle and hog
plagues-an come and sweep away his
years work, and when in the sadness
of his heart he complains of his hard
lot the world chides him as a grumbler,
and tells him to economic closer a e.,
starve) and try again. Well, I sup
pose this is all right, at least tits said
time makes all things even.
Those things might all be remedied