Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1895-03-28
The Debt Habit.

By N. y. GREELEY In Dakota Farmer
The bane of the average western
farmer is hat as soon as he owns a hen
he wants to run into debt for an incu-
bator, before he has a really good cow,
he is crazy for a costly creamery, and
so on with everything connected with
the farm.
Whether it is our invigorating atmos-
phere, or because our population is
composed SO largely of the visionary,
over-sanguine, poor calculating classes
from all creation, or whether we are
the victimes of more than usually sharp
agents, boomers, public spirit" cranks,
Or something else, 1 do not know, but
the way. .our.p people will, upon the
slightest provocation, go into debt, is
simply appalling. And this miserable
and most r~uinous habit is today the
most dangerous rock in the troubled
waters in which we are trying to nav
gate.
In talking with hundreds of poor
families all over the Dakotas last sum-
mer / did not find one but what adj
mitted that ii they had no interest and
debts to pay they could manage to live
fairly comfortably on the little income
they had even in the hardest of seasons,
but with very few exceptions they told
me they had, interest and debts to meet,
the payment of which would press
them greatly, and in some cases ruin
them. But when | began to talk poul-
try to some of these people they actu-
ally began to ask me about the cost
and management of incubators; when
| advised cows they talked cheese
factories and creameries, and when l
prescribed wool and mutton more than
one asked me if did not think to sue
coed sheep men should combine" and
and put up securing mills of their
own.
OF course / told them hat / had
found poultry very profitable, but had
seen an incubator only at fairs,
and had no earthly use for one That
If i had a dozen cows l would make my
own butter, and send it to my custom
ers direct, and that i had always
kept sheep, but that j had no possible
use for a securing mill and never ex-
pected to have. These people evidently
pittied my old fogyism, and wondered
how in the world / managed to make
4 living.
In conversation with a jeweler and
fancy goods dealer in one of our western
towns, after saying that one-fourth of
the people had played out and moved
away, he complained that his business
had shrunk IS per cent. How is this?
/ asked, only one-fourth of the people
gone away, but your business gone
three-fourths?
Well, you see" said the keen fellow,
"the o~ne-fourth who busted were the
ones who bought everything they saw.
These fellows with money don't do it,"
Now once more possible prosperity
is coming to the Dakotas. The time
for seasons Of moisture and better
yields is close upon as. We have h
benefit of past experience to point the
way. More largely than ever our peo-
Pile are turning their attention to corn
and potatoes and the coarser grains,
and to the cows, poultry, sheep, and
nogs hat must be kept to consume
them.
\ We started once In this ace for a
competency but the start was a bad
one and we were called back. Again
we are In line. Again Ego" sounds
from the meadows of the valleys, from
the grassy hills of the ~coteaus, from
farm and ranch, and flock ana herd,
and il we refuse to be handicapped
with debt and interest, the race is ours.