The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-05-31
MARKETS AT HOME.
The Farmer Finds His Wagon Better
 Market Than the Hallway Platform.

| Tho Farmer Finds His Wagon a Better
 Market Than the Railway Platform.
 Farmer Brown settled in the wilder ness some twenty years ago. His first crops were hauled fifty miles away and he had hard times. After awhile rail- way came and station was established three miles away.
 Then he stopped feeding wheat to his stock and stopped burning corn. He could ship them off east, he could ship pork, beeves and some other products which would bear transportation.
 Times grew better with him, but he often regretted that he was so far from markets. The railways got an awful slice, the steamships took another bite, and middlcmen all along the line nib bled or bit until his bushcl of wheat or corn, his hundred weight of pork, looked so small, net, that he sometimes felt that it was not worth the labor.
 He felt that there were too many commissions, tooheavy freight charges: that the railway platform was a dead ly enemy, and that farming did not pay.
 Just now fellow from somewhere east came along with money and open eyes He saw the water power or the timber, or the other natural resources, and proceeded to put up some indus trial works. Perhaps it was sawmill, n Touring mill, a tannery, furniture factory. These brought worlsmen and one enterprise another until the little hamlet grew to be a town and the town city
 In these days things changed. These worlImcn did not raise crops; they ate what he and other farmers raised. His wheat went to the home mill and he got his pay check with no reductions, no freights, no commissions, but good hard cash at the bank. Instead of whistling to the distant markets he was able to sell all he could raise right at home. He had to skirmish to get enough to supply the demand. He sold his farm products from the tcGgOn boz to the families of those who worked at the factories. 7Hey gave him good prices and chGrgcd no commission. He had the sale before his eyes and was not helpless victim of some one in Chicago or New York.
 Do you suppose he wishes these mills to close up and these people to turn in despair to that last resort, the farm? Not r,-ch! Will it be possible to con vince him that it is better to buy for cign goods-English calico, for in- stance--than to help build up home market? Let us wait until next No vember and see what we shall see.
 He has learned by hard knocks what college theorists cannot get out of booSs-that the village, now grown into town or city, is sure, net cash, market for every product of his acres.
 He knows that he can go in person, sell to whom he chooses, get the top of the market, hold his produce until | the prices suit him aud put the srhoLe | product deep down into his pocket or | his bank. He does not have to ship, | and trust and pay freight, only to be whittled to the fine edge of nothing.
 The farmers of the northwest are | big chunks of this sort of | practical hard-headed wisdom and ar to act accordingly. Ideas | may come slower on the farm, but | they are clearer and more definite and | they last longer. They summer and winter with the farmer. He has cal lous spots on his hands and he intends to make these count for money, for good homes, honest labor and indi- vidual prosperity.