Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-06-05
THE AMERICAN FARMER.
The Man Who TiIIs the Soil Has Come
Into His Own at Last.

The Man Who TilIs the Soil Has Come
Into His Own at Last.
If the American farmer went out OF
business this year he could clean up
thirty billion dollars. And he would
have to sell his farm on credit; for
there is not enough money In the
whole world to pay him half his
price.
Talk of the money-mad trusts!
They might have reason to be mad II
they owned the farms, instead or their
watered stock. When we remember
that the American farmer earns enough
in seventeen days to buy out the
Standard Oil, and enough In fifty days
to wipe Carnegie and the steel trust
off the Industrial map, the story OF the
trusts seems like "the short and sim
pie annals Of the poor"
One American harvest would buy
the kingdom of Belgium, king and all;
two would buy Italy; three would
buy Austria Hungary, and five at a
spot cash price, would take Russia
from the czar.
Talk about swollen fortunes! With
the setting Of every sun the money
box Of the American farmer bulges
with the weight Of twenty-four new
millions. Only the most athletic I'M
aginations can conceive Of such
torrent of wealth.
Place your finger on the pulse OF
your wrist, and count the heartbeats'
one,-two,-three,- With every
four of those quick throbs, day and
night, a thousand dollars clatters into
the gold-bin of the American farmer.
How incomprehensible 1t would
seem to Pericles, who saw Greece In
her Golden Age, If he could know that
the yearly revenue of his country Is
now no more than one days pay for
the men who till the soil Of this In
FAINT republic!
Or, how it would amaze a resurrec-
ted Christopher Columbus If he were
told that the revenue of Spain and
Portugal are not nearly as much as
the earnings of the American far
mers' hen!
Merely the crumbs that drop from
the farmers table otherwise known
as agricultural exports) have brought
him in enough in foreign money since
1892 to enable him, If he wished, 10
settle the railroad problem once for
all by buying every foot of railroad IN
the United States.
Such is our New Farmer-a man
for whom there is no name In any
language. He Is far above the far
mer of the story-books as a 1908 tour
ing car is above jinrikisha. Instead
of being an ignorant hoeman In a !
barnyard world, he gets the news by
daily mail and telephone; and Incl
dentally publishes 700 trade journal II
of his own. Instead of being money
less peasant, he pays the interest O
the mortgage with the earnings or
week. Even this is less Of an expense
than it seems for he borrows money
from himself out Of his own bank,
and spends the bulk of the tax money
around his own properties.
Farming for a business, not for
living-this is the motif Of the new
farmer. He is a Commentaries man
Of the twentieth century. He works
as hard as the old farmer did, but in
a higher way. He uses the four MS
mind, money, machinery and muscle;
but as little Of the latter as possible.
Neither Is he a Robinson Crusoe or
the soil, as the old farmer was. His
hermit days are over; he is man
among men. The railway, the trolley.
the automobile, and the top buggy
have transformed him into subur-
banite. In fact his business has be-
come so complex and many-sided that
he touches civilization at more points
and lives a larger life than II he were
one Of the atoms of a crowded city.
All American farmers, OF course,
are not Of the new variety. The coun-
try is like the city, has its slums. But
after having made allowance for ex-
ceptions, it is still true that the United
States is the native land of the new
farmer. He is the most typical human
product that this country has produc-
ed, and the most important, for, In
spite OF his egotistical cities. the
United States Is still farm based ma
tion.-Herbert y. Casson, in May Re-
view Of Reviews.