Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1896-09-05
HALSTEADS LETTER.
Writer Introduces Himself to the
Farmers Telling Of His Own
Rural Experiences.
WAATISWRoNGW WITH FARMING2
Propounds and Answers This Question
Advocating Mckinley and His
Policy as a Panacea
Special Correspondence of the Chicago Daily
News

Special Correspondence of the Chicago Daily
News.
New York, Aug. 81 desire to intro.
duce myself to the farmers by saying
am by trade one of them, though for
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 boy in Butler county, o.,
who could turn n furrow better than l.
or was more expert in using plows left
or right handed on hillsides or level
lands, so as to leave less unbroken land
at the turns than l, and there is no light
work would like better now than plow-
ing corn when it is about as high as
plowbpy. The trouble then is it is so brit
tie, and it is very provoking to have the
pretty stalks broken-and many a horse
have damned as a punishment for put
ting his rude foot into hill of corn. 1
was great boy to bind wheat, rye, oats
or barley with double bands, and once
tied up blacksnake in sheaf of wheat
so tight he could not get out, and there
never was a snake or boy more aston
ished. could beat the girls dropping
contour grains to the hill-and know
all about husking frosty ears of corn
with bone husking peg, held by a strap
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
line of information not pulled out of
books or picked up in schools. l know,
nj
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 Arc 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 case-therefore, that there
| are Republican farmers who If not en-
| lghtened are liable to vote for Bryan
and Watson or Bryan and Sewall. They
have heard so much about free silver as
patent medicine to cure the rheuma-
tism, heartburn, earache, fistula, dyspep-
sia and vertigo that they do not know
but they will try it. If they do they will
make the same mistake the workmen
greater misfortune than they tumbled
npen themselves. There is absolutely
nothing in free silver for farmers.
Whatever they want for relief 1t GER
tainly is not deprecated money-dollars
debased. We have been going on now
with dollars of the same value as that
of gold for eighteen years and change
in the purchasing power of dollar will
not help any honest man, unless it is
incidentally and in 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 be to right
the wrong, there should not be 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 Has Done.
What did he do? Consider sugar boun-
ties, for one thing. If the law had been
| allowed 10 remain as he uTeW IL
ka by this time would have teemed with
beet-sugar manufactures, every one a
help to the farmers, and the soil of
Nebraska is better for sugar beets than
that of Germany-only needs good
, start to establish an enoymous and in
valuable industry. The Mckinley. duty
, on barley caused the raising of millions
4 of bushels additional to the average OF
former crops, and this reduced sensibly
Y the excess of wheat production. This is
4 an example of what we mean by the di-
e versified industry that the protective sys-
, tenn promotes. We want more of 1t, and
that is McKinleyism.
: Why are wheat and butter down? AS
s to wheat: The use of agricultural ma
a chinery and the improvement in trans
8 portation has cheapened labor and ex-
tended available territory. Argentina is
: a prodigious wheat field; The soil il
y admirable, the rivers are deep, the plains
e give full sweep to the machinery, the rail
0 roads have nothing else to do than car
: ry the wheat to market and the steamers
0 carry the grain to Liverpool in huge car
I goes. Sailing vessels whose sails are
1 cheaper the cost of putting down Ar
gentina wheat in Liverpool, Egypt, India
| Canada, Russia, compete with us in the
wheat market of Western Europe. The
! | world is sort of country neighborhood
What is the matter with butter? Lee
|
:, to 25 or 30 cents pound-a living car
. be made producing butter at those fig
ures-what happens? A cable message
i. goes to Australia and there are ship
ments of thousands of tons of excellent
n butter at once. And it can be placed
y in New York and profitably sold at 1:
i cents a pound. 1t cannot be producet
in New York at those figures. This il
e lustration is not imaginary. The trans
y actions supposed have occurred recently
e What is the remedy? We can answer
I confidently that the coinage of NOR
& silver dollars will not be help. w,
ought to raise our own barley, our owl
hops, our own eggs, chickens, onions
and potatoes, to make our own suga
: and our own tinplate, so as to give th
: advantage of our own markets, the mos
% in the OWN woTa peop Se that the ever proSse
y ton of articles we have just nance
= would turn. over to American working
r. men 10000 900 of gold dollars annually
n Il Il