Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1896-09-02
HALSYEAD'S LETTER
Writer Introduces Himself to the
Farmers Telling Of His Own
Rural Experiences
WHAT'S WRONG WITH FARMING7
Propounds and Answers This Question
Advocating Mckinley and His
Policy as a Panacea.
Special correspondent of the chicago Daily

DfN 0tS
New York, Aug. 81 desire to intro
duce myself to the farmers by saying l
I'm by trade one of them, though for a
long time engaged in daily labor on the
daily papers. There are still some frosty
old friends of mine who can testify Of
their own knowledge that fifty years ago
there wasn't a boy in Butler county, o.,
who could turn a furrow better than /.
or was more expert in using plows left
or right handed vn hiiisidisss OF ic-ci
lands, SO as to leave less unbroken land
at the turns than L, and there is no light
work l would like better now than plow-
ing corn when it is about as nigh as q
plowboy. The trouble then is it is so brit
tie. and it is very provoking to have the
pretty stalks breken-and many a horse l
have damned as a punishment for put
ting his rude foot into a hill of corn.
was a great boy to bind wheat, rye, oats
tied up a blacksnake in a sheaf of wheat
so tight he could not get out, and there
never was a snake or a boy more aston
ished. l could beat the girls dropping
contour grains to the hill-and l know
all about husking frosty ears of corn
with a bone husking peg, held by q strap
over the two middle fingers of the right
hand; and the accomplishments Of dig
ging potatoes without cutting them, and
mixing green and dry food for horses,
and watching calves become cattle, colts
evolve into horses, lambs and pigs bloom
into sheep and hogs, are, with all the
hopes and fears associated with them, ia
miliar. The practical farmers will de-
tect in these observations the presence Of
a line of information not pulled out of
books or picked up in schools. l know,
too, about the way good old farms grow
less valuable, in spite of faithful atten-
ton, and how it is that some farmers
who do not buy pianos On the install
ment plan find it a pleasant experience to
borrow money.
Farmers Are Discouraged.
The news has been circulated a good
deal and not ~conclusively contradicted
that this year a good many farmers are
so discouraged by the way their affairs
have been going that they are ready to
do something unexpected in politics
that some of them think maybe there is
something in free silver that would
just fit their ease-therefore, that there
are Republican farmers who if not en-
l%ightened are liable to vote for Bryan
and Watson or Bryan and Sewall. They
have heard so much about free silver as
a patent medicine to cure the rheuma-
tism, heartburn, earache, fistula, dyspep-
STA and vertigo that they do not know
but they will try it. If they do they will
make the same mistake the workmen
did four years ago and invite even a
greater misfortune than they tumbled
upon themselves. There is absolutely
nothing in free silver for farmers.
Whatever they want for relief II Ger
tainly is not deprecated money-dolIars
debased. We have been going on now
with dollars of the same value as that
of gold for eighteen years and a change
in the purchasing power of a dollar will
not help any honest man, unless it is
incidentally and in a petty and frac-
tional way.
What Is the matter with farming?
The owner of one of the finest farms in
England, within sight of the forest Of
Windsor and the towers of Windsor
castle, stated to me that wheat had got
so cheap in England that the straw was
more valuable than the grain. The de-
preston is not exclusively American.
The trouble is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS is
the remedy? Whatever may be wrong,
and however difficult it may he to right
the wrong, there should not be a farm
er in all America so ignorant as not to
know that the man who has done most to
frame a tariff law to help the farmers is
William Mckinley.
What Mckinley las Done.
What did he do? Consider sugar boun-
ties, for one thing. If the law had been
allowed to remain as he drew 1t Nebras-
ka by this time would have teemed with
lxoA n,rau !, n,,f o nfnriac nuaru nnn n
help to the farmers, and the soil OF
Nebraska is better for sugar beets than
that of G~ermany-only needs a good
start to establish an enormous and in
valuable industry. The Mckinley duty
on barley caused the raising of millions
of bushels additional to the average OF
former crops, and this reduced sensibly
the excess of wheat production. This Is
an example of what we mean by the di'
yersiied industry that the protective sys.
tenn promotes. We want more of it, and
that is McKinleyism.
Why are wheat and butter down? AS
to wheat: The use of agricultural ma
! chinery and the improvement in trans
J portation has cheapened labor and ex
tended available territory. Argentina is
| a prodigious wheat field. The soil |,
admirable, the rivers are deep, the plains
9 give full sweep to the machinery, the rail
roads have nothing else to do than car
8 nv the wheat to market and the steamers
D carry the grain to Liverpool in huge car
T goes. Sailing vessels whose sails art
: pulled about by steam, saying hands
I cheaper the cost of putting down Ar
' ~gentina wheat in Liverpool, Egypt, India
Canada, Russia, compete with us in thu
wheat market of Western Europe. TIL,
world is a sort of country neighborhood
q What is the matter with butter? lie
the price Of butter go up in New Yorl
tn Ok or 30 cents a pound-a living cal
4 be made producing butter at those fig
D ures-what happens? A cable messag,
goes to Australia and there are ship
{ ments of thousands of tons of excellen
n butter at once. And it can be place,
! In New York and profitably sold at i.
t cents a pound. 1t cannot be produce.
in New York at those figures. This IL
e lustration is not imaginary. The trans
actions supposed have occurred recently
e What is the remedy? We can answe
I confidently that the coinage of NOR
silver dollars will not be a help. w
ought to raise our own barley, our owl
hons, our own eggs, chickens, onion
and potatoes, to make our own suga
: and our own tinplate, so as to give tn
advantage Of our own markets, the mos
5 valuable in the world or that ever w,er
y ton Of articles we have just name
vould turn over to American working
men 100, 1000, 900 Of gold dollars annually
d and then custom would improve tn
Il value Of the farms. There is no paten
nostrum about this. Our records ar
full Of the proof furnished by our ow
experience. The best thing the farm
$ err can do is to try McKinleyism.
e Murat Halstead.
\