The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1896-12-10
FACTS FOR FARMERS.
Helpful Suggestions For the
Aggriculturists.
HINTS THAT ARE INTERESTING.
Some Good Advice for the RuraIIsts-A
Bueget Of knowledge That May
Prove Beneficial.
secretary Norton. Report.

Secretary Morton has Just made
public his fourth annual report. He
concludes with comprehensive report
of the review of the condition of Amer.
lean farmers. Seventy-two per cent
of the farms in the United States occu-
pied by their owners are absolutely
free from mortgages or other incum-
brances. The Secretary. refutes the
idea prevailing THAT the farms of the
West and South are more heavily bur-
dened with mortgages than those of
the East and Northeast. The States
along the North Atlantic, he says, are
quite heavily incumbered with farm
mortgages. and New Jersey carries
debt of this kind greater in proportion
to its farm valuation than any State
in the Union. The frequent claim
that the farmers are almost universally
in debt, respondent and suffering, he
declares to be without any foundation,
a belittlement of agriculture and an in.
dignity to every intelligent and practi.
cal farmer. THE farmers are not
mendicants, he says, NOR wards
of the Government to be treated to
annuities, but the representatives of
the Oldest, most honorable, most essen
tial occupations of the human race
upon which all other vocations depend
for subsistence and prosperity.
Legislation, he says, can neither
pillow nor plant. The intelligent prac.
/ tical and successful farmer needs no aid
from the Government. The ignorant
impractical and indolent farmer de-
serves none. 1t is not the business of
the Government to legislate in behalf
of any class of citizens because they
are engaged in any specific calling, nc
matter how essential the calling may
be to the needs and comforts of civil.
zation. Lawmakers cannot erase the
natural laws nor restrict or efface the
operation of economic laws. 1t is q
beneficent arrangement of the or der Of
things and the conditions of human
life that Legislators are not permitted
to repeal, amend or revise the laws o.
production and distribution.
Referring to the stress of oompeti
ton which the American farmer il
compelled to endure, Mr.. Morton call
attention to the nearly two millions o
farms of eighty acres each given ava,
J by the Government under the home
} stead act during the past thirty year
and to the amount donated under tn
timber culture law, equivalent to owe
$50, 900 more farms of the same size
Lands long titled and rendered PARTIAL,
unfertile could not, of course, enhanc
in value and sell in competition wit
! virgin soil donated by the Government
/ No legislation relative to the publ
domain has been SO directly inimica
, to the farmers who had bought an
! paid for the lands upon which they ha
, lived and labored. 1t was impossibl
for farmers in the old States to profit
j ably sell their products in competition
J with those of the newer States, grow
) upon landsl which cost their owner
nothing. Referring to the impression
that greater rates of interest ar
charged for money loaned upon farm
than for that loaned upon other kind
| of real estate, Secretary Morton state
that the rate of interest charged o
mortgages upon residential propert
,, other than farms averages eighty -fou
: hundredths of per cent less than !
rate of interest charged upon fan
loans