Middletown transcript., 1897-04-17
MIDDLETowN. DEL, APR. n, 1897
OF Interest
To Farmers
sHoULD FARMERs coMPLAIN.

A writer in the Country Gentleman
in discussing the condition Of the far
mer and his pursuit, is of the opinion
that the sad condition of agriculture
is not peculiar to that calling alone; he
says: The same depression has touched
every business interest in the land, un-
less it is the business of Office holding,
which so far remains on the protected
list. The increasing number of busi-
ness failures certainly bears out this
conclusion. In every city of the West
business men who used to drive asporty
horse down town in the morning are
now patronizing the street cars, while
many former patrons of the cars find it
much to the benefit Of their "heaIth"
to walk. Every business concern from
the peanutman to the wholesaler is
cutting down expenses and fixed
charges, and business and professional
men are seen every day wearing over
coats that few years ago would have
been cheerfHlly offered to the first re-
lief committee that chanced to apply.
The writer in his capacity of COM
mercial traveller calls on the grocery
and general store trade in both iron
mining and farming districts, and
while the farmers are delivering choice
potatoes on cars at 10c. per bushel, and
wild hay at 81 (loose), some dealers are
selling % Id granulated sugar for a
dollar, and paying me $495 per cwt.
for the same. Miners on the Minneso-
ia ranges get $1.2 to S1.75, and have
work about half the time. Not long
since / stood at the top of the mine
shaft and watched lot of brawny fell
lows coming out Of the shaft at six
O'Clock with their candles fastened to
their hats where 500 feet below they
had fiickered their dim uncertain light
on ten hours of harder labor than any
farmer has to perform, and when those
hard and toil-stained faces were turned
toward the squalid shanty home, with
its barefooted children and worn and
hopeless wife. what tiller of the soil,
however humble and poor, would have
exchanged places with themP
OF perhaps two hundred grocers, the
writer has known, in he past ten years
at least fifty that have not only lost all
their capital, but have judgments
against them that in ordinary
circumstances they can never pay,
while not ten Of all That number have
made one single dollar more than a
living. These times seem to favor no
man, unless it is the one who has his
substance reduced to dollars and has
those dollars in vaul'. But, as Mr..
McDorman says, this win not always
last, and agriculture as pursuit will
not be behind others; and when we
stop to consider the scenes that after. all
do so much to improve or mar out little
drama of life, it seems that the shaded
country home, with its brooks, its
woodlands and lis meadows, ought not
to suffer in comparison with the mine,
the factory or the brick walled pens of
commerce.
The writer grew up on a farm and
has plowed his fence row many time,
and is familiar with the gentle tap OF
the alder root on the shlns. But if his
salary holds out a few years more,
there will be another case of slave re-
turning to his bondag.,. Some farmer.
whose shoulders are stopped with the
clearing and improving on the Crea-
tors beautiful footstool, and who
wants to go into. business" can then
find the fellow who would exchange
the catering, fattering, teadying life
of trade for the more independent one
of the farmer; and the '.luek" and the
signs Of the moon must be bad indeed.
if the wolf gets in the door.