Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1894-11-10
CORRESPONDENTS.
Agricultural Reform
SYKEsvILLE, Mp, Oct. 30, 1891


of Oct. 6
.Silcerite- Your correspondents sug-
gestion that the State put the thous-
ands of idle men on farms is all right;
but would it amelorate the condition
OF all classes of labor? | think not
from the very fact that the agri-
cultural class is only making ends
meet at the low prices of their produce
in the market. Therefore, your cor
respondent would crush the farming
class-lhe practical tilltrs of the soil,
and the idle men that he would have
the State put on the land would starve
at it with wheat at so cents per bushel.
So there are two classes that would not
be benefited at all.
Lioesey-1 am at loss to under
stand how "Silverite' can say in one
breath that it is call right" for the
State to put the thousands of idle
men on farms and then dispute in the
next the amelioration of their condi-
ton that would naturally follow. Does
he want them to go there to play the
national game of base ball ? If wheat
were five cents per busllel, only so
it would not necessarily follow that it
would be deprived of any of its nutri-
tive powers, it would keep the State
farmers, so far as it is concerned, as
far from starvation as if it were five
dollars per bushel. Idle men are going
oE the State farm to live off of what they
raise off of it and not what they sell
off of it. If wheat falls as much again
as it already has fallen, then it will be
worth nothing in the markets, and
starving men can scoop it up and
CoXeyites can no longer cry ''milllons
starving" | would be very glad to
see trial of d changed condition of
things-of d 81 Tut of the necessities of
life, the same as there seems to have
been sometimes glut of the super
fetal things of life. Pile high, say,
all the substantials that go into mems
stomachs and all the wool and cotton
necessary for their wa. NTH, that want
may never mole point its skinny fingers
to the Stars and Stripes as to the flag
beneath which it means. believe in
getting down to the practical and sub
stantial things Of life first, and in the
present demoralized condition of
things believe that every individual
has duty to do to himself and to his
country to realize it, This pranclng
around the world to the music of brass
bands and the intoxication Of socialist
and slngle-tax Utopias will lay no
millenial foundation whatever. Com
petition is the lie of trade ?" If the
farmers vocation is not a trade, APP
preeiative of this aphorsm, it has yet
to be substantiated or proven that it
is not. A sensible farmer does not
live on wheat alone, but on every
grain and fruit and root that proceeds
out of the womb of the earth. The
farmers in some parts of the country
We're saying recently that with wheat
at its low figure they were compelled
to stop farming, while in precise y the
same immediate locality large bodies
of German farmers We're duly success
full oE account of the income they
derived from a diversity of crops.
This fact has gone the rounds of the
papers throughout the whole country,
and at once proves that the farmer
must not rely on wheat alone when its
price falls below the average. The
German eolonists on our Eastern
Shore raised not grain of wheat in
consideration Of its cheapnesS, and they
are succeeding finely. The idle men
propose to put on the soil from the
cities would instil with the same idea
that diversity means success, and |
would not expect to see them starve as
result. However, when anybody
talks about making a living now-a-
days the idea always comes in that ii
great amount of money has to be
made. or there is no living made at
all. The farm system which | meant
to see created for the starving masses
is one in which every man will prin-
cipally be his own producer and his
own consumer. | want to get at, not
so much the amount of money man
will make as the amount of the neces-
saries of life the adoption of my plan
will bring him. This thing of hearing
of three millions and eighteen millions
of idle and starving people is the thing
| want to stop, whether they all make
enough money to HE off to Columbian
fairs or not. Farmers too often
crush" themselves. They ape to live
in STYLES beyond their means. Their
children are sent to school far beyond
the necessary period, which takes them
they are done their schooling they are
ready, not to practically assist i'll work
and management in thelr aged parents
stead, but 10 launch out as clerks,
teachers, book-agents, theological
students and ten thousand other things
but farming. They all run away to
the cities, produce congestion there,
and q diminished supply Of interested
farm labor for the country, which
makes the great scarcity Of farm hands
everywhere felt as one of the draw
backs to farming. and, consequently.
as one of the causes of its financial
failures in addition to the so cents a
bushel wheat. Not thousand miles
from where | pen these lines | can
point out four contiguous farmers all
damning taxes. finances, ETC., for tard
times, while they have followed the
above processes of living, and while
their mortgages are eating them up.
A fifth farmer right in the midst of
them, who began poorer in pverY way,
| can point out as highly successful,
because he lived and brought up his
children in Il manner becoming
farmer. He told me the other day he
was lending Nancy t4 the Gerry men he used
TO aoork for as a farm hand There may
be some unfortunate localities and
some unfortunate men in farming, as
in everything misconceptions that
prove the rule that moderate success
comes to the economical, the patient
and the Industrious Nv nlan renre-