The herald., 1897-04-17

| raised, and he confined the raising OF the
surplus to stuff that he knew would sell
| readily for cash. He did not farm to
get rich and therefore did not stake the
results of the year on one crop and sac
'rifice all else to putting in the largest
possible area of that. And he took no
| chances, to any extent, on experimental
crops. whose market value might be
too dubious or fiuctuating. He put in
enough that was sure to offer surplus
that the market sought instead of one that
had to seek the market, and II he wanted
to experiment, he tried but a small area,
feeling his way along on safe lines. While
he did not drive as fine buggy, perhaps.
as his sons now do, he lived In as good
a house, with about as many real COM
forts, and a very much smaller crop of
fruitless aspirations. If he was fortunate
the farm when through. instead of NOV
ing to the city to take UP politics as
business. The last thing he dreamed of
was mortgaging the farm for money to
make improvements to sell it with, and
he never lost day from work in looking
for tenderfoot to buy him out so that
he could move to town to enjoy more
society.
There are few who will assert that the
farmer is independent today. Too many
farmers h;ve crippled the storekeeper
who sold them the provisions they should
have raised themselves, and too many
of the storekeepers who finally had to
take the farm have crippled the whole
salers who furnished the goods and the
tankers who tried to carry both. Never
theless it is pleasant to see some exam
pies of independence of the olden time
still abroad in the land, and to see that
such independence does not mean living
like the peasant of Europe or the peon
of Mexico. 1t is comforting to know
that there are enough of these to serve
as guides for more and that the stability
landed gentry putting on cheap style
in the cities and farming by proxy.
At the head of the list the Mormons
stand pre-eminent. This is due mainly
to the fact that most all of them are
irrigators. But this does not wholly ex-
plain the way in which they have passed
through the late depression with scarcely
failure in their ranks, either among
the farmers or those who trust them.
Something else is necessary to make the
farm of twenty acres. and rarely over
thirty, support family in comfort, and
even in luxury, and keep out of debt in
such trying times. 1t is the first prin-
ciple of the Mormons that every farm
should be self-supporting; that it should
be no larger than is necessary for the
support of the family; that it should be
owned by the tenant so that he has no
rent or interest to pay any one. The re-
suits of nearly fifty years show how 1t
has worked. Will any one say they do
not know how to live? If so, let him
visit the settlements at Mesa and Tempe
in Salt River valley. and he will quickly
change his mind. OF course, irrigation
is the main factor. but the same princi-
pie of keeping out of debt and out Of
speculation and making the farm pay
its way from year to year would make
success on eighty acres in any of the
rainy states that are worth living in at
all.
We can see the same thing here among
those who are not Mormons, especially
i'll Orange county and parts of Los Ange-
les county similar to it. The tillers of
the soil who find themselves most in
debt today are generally those who for
several years took enough out of the
ground to carry them over ten years Of
depression if it had been saved. Those
who are generally out of debt and max
ing a good living are those who, like the
alfalfa growers, did not make enough to
turn them into spectators and set them
buying town lots or building fine new
house when the old one was good enough.
every hand, but they are little heard Of,
because such farmers go about their
business while the others do the whining.
In those states where the rainfall is suf-
ficient to justify farming at all, 1t is
much the same. Since the farmers of
Minnesota and Wisconsin quit risking
the work of the year on one crop of
wheat and went into mixed farming and
dairying, with a little surplus of cattle
on almost every farm, tens of thousands
of them have been out of debt, with a
little balance in bank, and are living
far better than when all was staked or
ore crop, which required a good yield
and a high price combined to lift them
out 1t is the same in Iowa and all the
older states, though there are places
on the drier belts farther west where no
kind of farming on the rainfall alone
will make even a good living. But here
the marvellous power of irrigation is
to the rescue, and many man
who three or four years ago thought he
would have to abandon the farm has
been able to remain and live in comfort
by the aid OF only five acres watered
with the windmill. But it is planted in
stuff to eat, and not to get rich on by
selling to some one else at the price
of luxury.
Mayor Snyder yesterday filed a mes