The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1896-10-02
HALS7EAD'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 Panacea-
Special Correspondence of the Chicago Daily
News. rf


New York, Aug. 81 desire to intro
duce myself to the farmers by saying
am 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 furrow better than /.
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
plowboy. The trouble then is it is SO brit
tie, and it is very provoking to have the
pretty stalks broken-and many horse
have, damned as a punishment for put
ting his rude foot into hill of corn. I
was a great boy to bind wheat, rye, oats
or barley with double bands, and once !
tied up a blacksnake in sheaf of wheat
so tight he could not get out, and there
never was snake or a boy more aston
ished. l could beat the girls dropping
contour grains to the hill-and know.
with bone husking peg, held by strap
over the two middle fingers of the right
hand; and the accomplishments of dig
ging potatoes without cutting them, and
ulAlliS green anu uTy IOOu LOT nOE080s
| and watching calves become cattle, eolts
evolve into horses, lambs and pigs bloom
into sheep and hogs, are, with all the
hopes and fears associated with them, fa-
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. know,
| too, about the way good old farms grow
less valuable, in spite of faithful atten-
| ton, and how it is that some farmers
yh<> ID I,,rx ~~sz Al
ment plan find it a pleasant experience to
borrow money. 1f4.
Farmers Are Discouraged.
The news has been circulated a good
deal and not conclusively contradicted
| that this year 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 IL
| something in free silver that would
| just fit their case-therefore, that there
are Republican farmers who if not en-
| 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-
sia 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 q
| greater misfortune than they tumbled
upon themselves. There is absolutely
nothing in free silver for farmers.
| Whatever they want for relief it GER
| tainly is not deprecated money-doflars
| 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 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
preston is not exclusively American.
| The trouble is Observation-Disclosures is
| the remedy? Whatever may be wrong,
| and however difficult it may be 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.
|
| "hat "ch'hiey has Done'
| What did he do? Consider sugar boun-
| ties, for one thing. If the law had been
| allowed TO remain as he drew it Nebras-
| 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-on]v needs n good
start to estahjish an enormous and in
SUI. a,,',h, n r ;ndustrr an 1rha MnfSin,ev dutv
aai't'in ha,le nasni Tho ra,sina Of n';,i;nns
os II' parif eaadt ad;t;nI III. "a 4he o,anana -
ea pusle,s auo,r, u9 th 10 doad .ne sans;,in ~
FORMER crops anu tils 5euueeu s1u;y Th;n !;
the excess OF Wneat productloh. I'M ms =; ~
an example OF what we mean Dy tne oi-
verslfled industry that the protectlye sys,
tenn promotes. we want more OF IT, ana
that is Mcklnieylsm.
! why are Wheat ana butter down As
to wheat: Inc use OF agricultural ma
| chinery and the improvement IN trans
portation has cheapened labor and ex-
tended available territory. Argentina is
a prodigious wheat field The soil is
admiral BILE. the rivers are deep. the plains
give fnll sweep to the machinery. the rail-
roads have nothing else to 40 than car
| ~ the wheat to market and the steamers
COS 9. live yessn,s whose sails are
Ill. ahn,,4 NV staan, SAVING hands
chaanan cha.ru a tbe cost of pnttine down Az.
!