The Black range. (Robinson, Socorro County, N.M.) 1882-1897, 1896-05-01
GRAIN RAISING.
How Gold Prices Keep the Farmers Poor
Figures to Study.

other localities who are accustomed to
talk of large sums, without consider
ing that they are the aggregation of
the labor of millions of individuals,
have been figuring on the corn crop of
this year, which is unusually large,
and which they say represents q value
of $3.50, 900, 900, figuring on crop of
2, 500, 600, 600 bushels, worth 30 cents a
hushel 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 amodnt of money, however
large, becomes small when it is divided
among large number of persons, and
the product of the corn crop, even II
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:
1T is all right to aggregate these
tremendous figures, but let usget down
to the real facts. 1t is not certain yet
that there will be 2,5o0, 600, 600 BUSH
| els. 1t is not certain that it will bring
80 cents bushel, but we will suppose
| a., otc<.
that 2,500,O 600 bushels we find that last
spring 1000. 600 acres were planted to
corn. That gives a fraction over 81
bushels per acre. Thirty-one bushels
at 80 cents per bushel makes the gross
yield S7.36 per acre. If the farms
averaged forty acres each, that gives to
each farmer $372. Now, to raise forty
acres of corn requires two mems work
for six months. Reckoning the labor
at 81 per day and the board at so cents,
the cost is SIS per month, or for six
months it is $3.50 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 IT
the farmer kept even outside of the
corn, he was doing we'll And we find
that if he hired help to raise and har-
vest the corn crop, he fell short just
SIS 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 a day
through the hot summer, and they
have nothing to do through the win
ter"
1t is very evident from the figures Of
the Tribune that the price of corn will
have to be considerably above 80 cents
/ bushel before the farmers lot will be
one that can at all compare with that
tf the Vanderbilts and Astors-
The same results that have been
gained by the Tribune In its 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 Califor-
MIA are becoming. On this subject the
San Francisco Examiner says:
1.-THE inquiry was made by circulars,
and the returns are meager. The re-
plies were less than 100 ia number, and
they gave the figures for 1894, when
wheat was at it's lowest point, and
might perhaps be said to give an unfair
view of the situation. Nevertheless
there is reason to believe that the con-
: clusions indicated by the few statistics
of the state board of agriculture give
correct indication of the state of the
industry.
''The average of the figures present.
ed to the board give the following for
the cost of raising wheat: Where the
yield is 10 bushels per acre the cost is
70 cents per bushel; is bushels per
acre, IS cents per bushel; 20 bushels
per acre, "a cents per bushel; 25 bush
els per acre, so cents per bushel: 80
bushels per acre, IS cents per bushel.
"As the average farm price for
wheat in 1894 was 40. cents per bushel
it may be taken that land that yielded
less than about 1S bushels per acre
brought loss to tho man who raised
the wheat
According to the returns OF the de-
partment of agriculture, which are
much fuller than those of the state
board of agriculture, the average yield
of tho California wheat farms is about
10 bushels per acre. 1t is evident that
there is a big 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
doubt all that has been said about the
cereal would apply as we'll to cotton
raising. 1t is difficult, therefore, to
find the ground upon which an eastern
paper bases this remark: THE farmer