The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1907-04-03
THE GOOD OLD times.
Some Reflections On Tk.em BY
the American Farmer.

Everything Was Very Cheap, But
Dollars Were Scarce and Hard To
Get.
Had YOU lived in the fourteenth
century says The American Farmer
YOU could have bought draug1t
horses at 72cenus eacn and oxen al
isl.25. In the days of Henry II s5t
would have equipped a farm with
! three drsught horses, half a dozeL;
oxen, twenty COWS and two hunoteo
sheep, leaving a balance OF 81 TO.
ward the payment Of rent. Whlcn
was about S. a year. In England pas
ture and arabic lands were rldulous-
! " cheap. 2 cents an acre for the tor
r,,er and II cents an acre for the lat.
ter being considered lar annual
TWo cents or its equivalent would
Inv a pair Of chickens in these bles-
!; sed DAYS Of old. For the value Of a
nickel one could acquire goose fit
for Christmas dinner or two ducks
i that would make a fine roast. A
penny would purchase dozen strict
/: " fresh eggs, and wheat sometimes
fell as low as 40 cents q quarter, or
eight bushels.
This period seems to have been
the paradise Of topers, as the brew
er was compelled by law to sell for
q cents three gallons Of beer, the
equivalent OF: forty-eight glasses.
it will give our modern labor unions
the cold shivers to read that 3 cents
day was considered good wages
FOR an ordinary labores. Our far
mers will probably heave a sigh OF
sympathy when they learn that
even at harvest time<A 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 pros
perity. Housekeeping might safely
be entered upon by the most tlmor-
Gus in those good old days. "
House rent was so low that the Lord
Mayor of London paid only $3.50
a year to his lanlocd.
The Chancellor of the British ex-
chequer, the man who does the work
of our Secretary of the Treasury,
had an annual salary Of Sl92, When
a father sent his son to a university
4 cents a day looked upon as a COM
Portable allowance. with a margin
for such iuxuries as wine at s to II
cents a gallon.
A salary Of S24 a year was consid-
cred munifcent, King Edward VI
gave his daughter an allowance. of
$3.50 a week with an additional S24o.-
SO year for the maintenance of her
eight servants. The bed that a king
then slept on would now be Stunned
by the humblest farmer in the land.
There is no a renter IN the West
that would not be cosidered rich by
comparison.
Remember, too. that they had no
railroads in those days or decent
roads of any kind. A trip Of a few
hundred miles was a momentous IN
dertakin, and a man setting out from
London to Edinburg made his will
with little hope Of getting back. Of
course, there were no intereurbens,
or street cars or even canals, and
wheeled vehicles were entirely out
of the reach Of any but the arlstoc-
racy.
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
cred 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 cents 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, absurdly low.
There were no markets, only the
neighborhood consumption, and,
there being little or no money, ev-
erything was barter. Eggs went
a-begging at a cent or two a dozen,
poultry was but little better, stock
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 devoted to toll and nights de-
void of ease, was the best that could
be anticipated by millions Of pioneer
farmers in the good old days
Some sentiment still fingers about
those times, we recall with interest
many Ct the ronrntic and tragic in
cidents, 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 crown in the corners of
the blessed days of .linsy-woolsey
dresses, jeans suits, corduroy roads
and cabin doors. AS for ourselves
we prefer the present, despite its
graft and greed, it's selfshness and
it's sordidness, for at least it has re-
placed penury with plenty, depriva-
ton of all kinds with innuneral
comforts, and has changed agricul-
culture from groveling calling to
the noblest and most prosperous OF