The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1908-01-09
BEST FARM METHODS
TAUGHT BY EXPERTS
Farmers Institute to be Held at Miller
January 1874

cd in the matter, SO it is't frenzy.
The truth hovers elusively some
where between these points. In
+ Boston there is certain playhouse.
lying trife out OF the beaten path.
which advertises something doing
every minute" That pretty well
describes the present state of things
in the prairie West. There is a con-
tinuous performance of high-tension
industrial activity in many rings at
once, so that the onlooker is made
dizzy and confused trying to keep
track of it all. AS a whole, the West
is making money in plenty, spending
it freely, living layishly. The prices
of labor and labor's products are
soaring. and (the final and perhaps
the most significant fact) land values
are rising at rate which promises
entirely to submerge all earlier high
water marks.
The press of the East, beholding
these signs from afar. has been say
ing of late that the West is on the
ragged edge of another boom" "
Whereat the West is exceedingly in
dignant. Twenty ye' rs ago almost
anv prairie community would have
arched its neck and pranced under
the word; today anv one of them will
lay back its ears and kick. For the
West has found out that boom
is TO community what a bust" is
to one of its private citizens. Both
are things of disrepute, of painful
memories and remorse, not to men,
tion the penalties and costs in dollars
and cents. In the time of low-spirit-
ed repentance that followed the
boom" of the eighties, the praire
country took a solemn vow: Never
more" And these folks don't like
to have the eastern gossips recalling
that early misdoing, wagging their
heads and limiting at backsliding.
The West Getting Wiser
The prairie country is not boom
lng," nor trying to boom nor
willing to boom" if it had the
chance. The boom of twenty
years ago came at time when the
prairie land, young and full of gin
GER" lacked anything like dicipline
which experience gives. Today it
has gathered the experience, and it
has better things to think about than
the mad excesses of a hot-blooded
youth. That's no mere figure of
speech, A community, no less than
a man, may get and profit by wis
dom.
Not to be too extreme, | venture
the proposition that Western indus
trial affairs are to-day on a sounder
basis than the affairs of the East.
There is in them less of the artifi-
cial Their successful issue depends
less upon the contrivances of a pro-
tective tariff, less upon the fictions
of stock-market methods and theo-
ries. distinctly less upon the ebb and
flow of all that uncertain tide that
wears the name of political poll
cies.' There is not much that is
complex in the prairie scheme. 1t is
a scheme of first relations. of prima-
ry facts. The chief resources of the
prairies are the staple soil-products;
the commerce Of the prairies is a
traffic in actual commodities. Those
self-styled centres of the grain
trade" the pits, may fuss and fume
and ferment; but the prairies are
raising real grain, and selling it for
real money, at prices fixed, not by
the speculative furore of feverish
hour, but by world-conditions.
What Real Prosperity Means
i Crop yields. of course, vary from
season to season, and prices rise and
fall, but did you ever hear of farm
ing community shutting down, or
running on half time, or suffering
from panicky failure of conf
dence," just because state>or the
Nation happened to swap ends
on question of political expediency,
or such like? You never did. You