Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1907-03-16

Henry IL $50 would have equipped
q farm with three draught horses,
half a dozen oxen, twenty cows and
two hundred sheep, leaving a bal
ance of 81 toward the payment of
rent, which was about So year.
IN England pasture and arabic lands
were ridiculously cheap, cents an
acre for the former and II cents an
acre for the latter being considered
q fair annual rental. Two cents or
its equivalent would buy a PAIR of
chickens IN these blessed days of
old. For the value of a nickel one
could acquire goose fit for Christ
mas dinner or two ducks, that
would make fine roast. A penny
would purchase a dozen strictly
fresh eggs, and wheat sometimes
fell as low as 40 cents a quarter, or
eight bushels. THIS period seems
10 have been the paradise of topers,
IS the brewer was compelled Dy
law TO sell for cents three gallons
Of beer, the equivalent of forty
eight glasses. 1t will give our
modern labor unions the cold
shivers TO read that cents day
was considered good wages for an
ordinary laborer. Our farmers will
probably heave a sigh of sympathy
when they learn that even at har-
vest time cents was the highest
amount expected. Young couples
about TO marry had no such terro s
before their eyes as confront them
IN this era of prosperity. House
keeping might safely be entered
upon by the most timorous in those
good old days" House rent was
so low that the Lord Mayor of
London paid only $3.50 a year to
his landlord.
The Chancellor of the British ex-
chequer, the man who does the work
Of our Secretary of the Treasury.
had an annual salary of 1892. When
a father sent his son to a university
4 cents day was looked upon as a
comfortable allowance, with a mar
gin for such luxuries as wine ats
TO II cents a gallon. A salary Of
$24 year was considered munifi-
cent. King Edward VI gave his
daughter an allowance of 81 80 a
week, with an additional $247. go q
year for the maintenance OF her
eight servants. The bed that
king then slept on would now be
Stunned by the humblest farm IN
the land. There is not a renter in
the West that would not be con-
sidered rich by comparison. Re-
member, too, that they had no rail-
roads in those days. or, decent roads
Of any kind. A trip of few humid
red miles was a momenCous under
taking, and man setting out from
London to Ed1nburg made his will
with little hope Of getting back. OF
course, there were no interurbans,
or street cars, or even canals. and
wheeled vehicles were entirely out
Of the reach of any but the aristo-
cracy.
But it is not necessary to go back
to the fourteenth century or to Eng
land to find out what was meant by
the good old times" Come along
down to the nineteenth century and
to our own country and see how
people lived much less than a hun
dred years ago. Many men now
living remember when one had to
work all day at the hardest KIND OF
work for one bushel of wheat.
Fifty centO in trade was what one
got for beginning at daylight and
grubbing or splitting rails until the
sinking sun reminded him to quit
his arduous task. Farm produce,
when salable at all, was absurdly
low. There were no markets, only
the neighborhood consumption, and,
there being little or no money,
everything was barter. Eggs went
a-begging at cent or two dozen,
POuAC1 Wdo Jul A4lI1O OObCCAy SGOO1
of all kinds at the very lowest ebb,
and no farmer could hope to make
profit off any of his produce. Merely
a living, as the result of days de-
voted to toll and nights devoid of
ease, was the best that could be
anticipated by millions of pioneer
farmers in 1.-The good old days."
Some sentiment still fingers about
those times, we recall with interest
many of the romantic and tragic
incidents, but we hardly think any
of our farmer readers would care to
be transported back, except in
fancy, to the period which did not
fully end until the last century was
more than half over. The good
old times" are well enough for the
poets, the writers Of historical
novels and the ancient DANES who