The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1907-07-05
OLD TINE FARMING.
ATTRACTIVE IN ROMANCE, BUT
UNPLEASANT IN REALITY.
In the Fourteenth Century Land Was
RidicuIousIy Cheap in Merry eng
Iand-What is Really Meant by This
Talk of the "Good Old Times"

Had You lived in the fourteenth CEN
fury you could have bought draught
horses at 70 cents each and oxen at
SIPS. In the days of Henry H., $50
would have equipped farm Win
three draught horses, half a dozen
oxen, twenty cows and 200 sheep, leav-
ing a balance of So toward the pay
ment of rent, which was about 50
year. In England pasture and arabic
lands were ridiculously cheap, cents
an acre for the farmer and IL cents
an acre for the latter being consider
ed a fair annual rental. Two cents
or it's equivalent would buy pair OF
chickens in these blessed days of old.
For the value of a nickel one could
acquire a goose fit for Christmas din
ner or two ducks that would make
a fine roast. A penny would purchase
a dozen strictly fresh eggs, and wheat
fell sometimes as low as 40 cents
quarter, or eight bushels. This per-
Tod seems to have been the paradise
of topers, as the brewer was compelled
by law to sell for cents three gal
Ions of beer, the equivalent of forty
eight glasses. It will give our mod
ern labor unions the cold sh1vers 70
read that cents a day was consld-
cred good wages for an ordinary Ia
borer.
Our farmers will probably heaye
sigh of sympathy when they learn
that even at harvest time 4 cents was
the highest amount expected. Young
couples about to marry had no such
terrors 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 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 university
four cents a day was looked upon as
a comfortable allowance, with mar
gin for such Injuries as wine at 8
to IL cents a gallon. A salary OF VA
a year was considered munif1cent.
King Edward vi. gave his daughter
an allowance of $3.50 a week, with
an additional $247.00 a year for the
maintenance of her eight servants.
The bed that king then slept on
would now be Stunned by the hum
blest farmer in the land. There is
not a renter in the West that would
not be considered rich by comparison.
Remember, too, that they had no rail-
roads in those days or decent roads
of any kind. A trip of a few hun
bred miles was a momentous under
taking, and man setting out from
London to Edinburgh made his Will
with little hope of getting back. or
course, there were no interurbans, or
street cars, or even canals, and
wheeled vehicles were entirely out of
the reach of any but the aristocracy.
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 ano see how peo-
pie lived much less than hundred
years ago. Many men now living re-
member when one had to work all
| day at the hardest kind of work for
| one bushel of wheat. Fifty cents in
trade was what one got for begin
ming at daylight and grubbing or split
ting rails until the sinking sun re-
| minded him to quit his arduous task
Farm produce, when salable at all,
was absurdly low. There were No
markets, only the neighborhood con-
sumption, and there being little or
no money everything was barter. Eggs
went begging at a cent or two
dozen, poultry was bat little better,
stock of all kinds at the very low
est ebb, and no farmer could hope
to make profit off any of his produce.
Merely a living, as the result of days
devoted to toll and nights devoid OF
ease, was the best that could be an
ticipated by millions of pioneer farm
ers 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 farm
err readers would care to be trans
ported 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 we'll
enough for the poets, the writer's OF
historical novels and the ancient
DANES who Groom in the corners OF
the blessed days of insey-woolsey
dresses, jeans suits, corduroy roads
and open cabin doors. AS for our
selves we prefer the present, despite
its graft and greed, its selfishness and
its sordidness, for at least it has re-
ylaced penury with plenty, depriva-
tions of all kinds with innamerable
comforts, and has changed agricul.
ture from a grovel:ng calling to the
happiest and most prosperous of the
orofassior Tho Amarican Farmer