The Monticellonian., 1895-10-04
GRAIN RAISING,
How Gold Prices Keep the Farmers Poor
 EiRureA n sfudy.

i the labor Of millions of individuals, l have been figuring on the corn crop of this year, which is unusually large, and which they say represents a value of S7s0, 900, 900, figuring on a crop of 2500, GOO, 900 bushels, worth 30 cents a busheL This enormous sum of money, the eastern gentlemen figure, will re- | store all the farmers to prosperity and kill the clamor for bimetallism, for it Is in connection with gold-bug argu- ments that these figures are given out with much flourish of trumpets by the monometallic press.
 but any amount of money, however | large, becomes small when it Is divided among a large number of persons and the product of the corn crop, even if the eastern estimates are correct, will not give the farmers who raised the crop any money to throw at the birds or pay their expenses for an extensive European tour.
 The Salt Lake Tribune has analysed these corn crop figures with the fol lowing result:
 Tt is all right to aggregate these tremendous figures, but let us get down to the real facts. It is not certain yet that there will be Q 500, 900, GOO bush- els. 1t is not certain that it will bring 3O cents bushel, but we will suppose that both hopes are realized. To raise that 2, 300. 900 bushels we find that last spring s2. 100000 acres were planted to corn. That gives fraction over 31 bushels per acre. Thirtv-one bushels a 30 cents per bushel makes the gross yield S7. 36 per acre. If the farms averaged forty acres each, that gives to each farmer S372. Now, to raise forty acres of corn requires two mems work for six months Reckoning the abor at Sl per day and the board at 50 cents, tine cost is S75 per month, or for six months it is S45O Then the two men have to be boarded for six months more. There had to be at least one woman in the house to do the cooking, washing and mending for the men. Probably there were two or three children that had to be clothed and fed, and while they made a little money, perhaps, out of chickens, tur- keys and eggs, any one can see that if the farmer kept even outside of the corn, he was doing well. And we find that if he hired help to raise and har- vest the corn crop, he fell short just S75 on the years crop. If he did the work himself, he and his boys, then for all his work and all his boys work, they did not average a dollar day through the hot summer, and they have nothing to do through the win ter"
 It is very evident from the figures of the Tribune that the price of corn will have to be considerably above 30 cents a bushel before the farmers lot will be one that can at all compare with that of the Vanderbilts and Astors
 The same results that have been gained by the Tribune in it's study of the corn crop statistics have been reached in regard to the local wheat crop by the state board of agriculture, which has been trying to ascertain how wealthy the wheat raisers of Galfor Hia are becoming On this subject the San Francisco Examiner says:
 "The inquiry was made by circulars, and the returns are meager The re- plies were less than 100 in number, and they gave the figures for 1894, when wheat was at its lowest point, and might perhaps be said to give an unfair view of the situation. Nevertheless there is reason to believe that the con- clusons indicated by the few statistics of the state board of agriculture give a correct indication of the state of the industry.
 "'rhe average of the figures present. ed to the board give the following for tac cost of raising wheat: Where the yield is 10 bushels per acre the cost is 70 cents per bushel; 15 bushels per acre, 5 cents per bushel; 20 bushels per acre, 34 cents per bushel; % bush els per acre, 39 cents per bushel; 30 bushels per acre, 35 cents per bushel.
 As the average farm price for wheat in 1894 was 49. cents per bushel it may be taken that land that yielded less than about Is bushels per acre brought loss to the man who raised the wheat
 According to the returns of the de- pertinent of agriculture, which are much fuller than those of the state board of agriculture, the average yield of the California wheat farms is about l3 bushels per acre It is evident that there is a bic section of California that must get out of wheat and get into some other business if it is to make money"
 Wheat and corn are the two staple products of the farmers of this country outside of the cotton states, and no d.. I.4 4l, l.. cereal would apply as well to cotton raising. It is difficult, therefore, to find the ground upon which an eastern paper bases this remark: The farmer finds in returning prosperity an oppor- tunitv to square accounts and adjust balances, and, if the spectators can be set aside, their bank deposits will soon be in condition to meet any future demand with nest-egg left over"
 The comments of the Salt Lake and timely, when it says;
 ''Is it any wonder that the rural dis trlcts are not increasing in population, and is it not plain enough that all these great figures, running into the hun dreds of millions of dollars, are gotten up to give out false idea that the farmers. under present circumstances, are doing well throughout the east? II is simply bare struggle for life, and if there is any indebtedness on the place. that indebtedness, sooner or later, will break the farmer and leave the family homeless, without means, and without the ability to engage in