The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-08
THE FARNIER rs King.
TFrom the Minneapolis Journal

[F'rom the Minneapolis Journal
Unless the secretary OF agriculture is
a hopeless optimist, these are great
times for the farmer. Prices are high
and crops are generally abundant. Al
together the farmers of the republic
have produced about s5,0o0,OOO,Ooo OF
wealth this year. This is about $1,000
apiece on the average to every farmer.
good, bad or Indifferent. AS the aver
age income in the United States IS
about $500 a year, it is plain that the
farmer has, after all, considerably the
best of most Of his fellow countrymen
from the standpoint of wealth.
The indications are that there are
many good years ahead Of the farmer
1t is doubtful if there will ever be such
a low level of prices in the future as
there was in the middle nineties
HencefoFth the farmer will profit by
unearned increment as well as by the
earned. There are no more great areas
of cheap and fertile lands in the repub-
lie to be thrown into competition with
old and less productive lands. The in
creased crops of the future must come
from more of a yield to the acre in
stead OF more acres. The acres that r.
rigation may add viii not be numerous
enough to affect the price of old land
adversely. Irrigated land is costly be-
fore a pillow has ever been driven into
it, and the supply @ small compared
with the demand.
Even If some reciprocity arrangement
with Canada were to make much of the
agricultural produce of that country
available for the American market, the
price of lands would not be disturbed
and the argument for good times for
the farmer would not be affected. Can
ada finds a good and high-priced mar
ket in Europe for its agricultural prod
ucts, and it is only by paying as much
or more than Europe that we could get
them. In many instances that would
mean paying more than we are now
paying to our own farmers. Wheat is
an exception, but our farmers are quit
ting wheat raising for more profitable
pursuits. Moreover, there is not rela-
lively such a vast area of good agri-
cultural land in western Canada as has
sometimes been supposed At the pres
ent rate of settlement, the occupation
of all of that land Will soon be effected.
Already land prices are beginning to
advance stifffy in western Canada.
There is just so much land to be
had, and all the time the population of
the United States and of the world is
longed to the farmer. If he keeps on
taxing the deposit facilities of the
banks as he has in recent years he will
soon be the greatest capftalistic power
in the country. Even down in old Mis-
sfssippi the bank deposits have increas-
ed 800 per cent in the least eight years, |
and other agricultural states do better
than the average of the increase for |
the whole country.
This rise of the farmer is worth |
about when you have made up
your mind that things are going from
bad to worse in this republic. With |
some 100000 farm families, represent !
ing a population of about 81, e00, 900, be- |
coming more prosperous and more indie !
pendent each year, we shall have to re- |
wise any premature conclusion we may |
nave arrived at to the effect that the /
United States is a country in the west
ern hemisphere belonging to the trusts. |