The enterprise-recorder. (Madison, Fla.) 1908-1933, 1908-08-20
The New American Farmer.
He Makes Use of the -Four Ms-Mind Money
Machinery and Muscle.
<fTile'r
HE EHRNS ENOUGH IN SEVENTEEN y
Days TO BUY OUT THE FHNDHRD OIL
Would Take Thirty 'Thousan} MILLION Dollars
to Buy Him OW
BY HERBERT N. ca SON

ers WOUND taH, and the gay palace
hotels would DE as desolate as the
Temple of Thkses,
The working farmer is the
man behind prosperity. That is the
big fact of recent American history.
1t is he who pays the bills and holds
up the national structure in the
whirlwind hour of panic Last year,
for instance, while banks were
tumbling, the non-hysterical farmer
was quietly gathering in a crop that
was worth three times all the bank
capital in the United States; and since
1902 he and his soil have produced as
much wealth as would support Uncle
Sam, at his present rate of living, for
fifty years.
What was called Mckinley pros
perity" was really created by the ag-
ricultural boom of 1897. There had
been a general crop failure in Europe,
and the price of wheat had scared
above 81 a bushel other nations
paid us $1,000, 100000 for farm
products, and this unparalleled in
pouring of foreign money made US
the richest and busiest nation in the
world.
The supreme fact about the Amer
lean farmer is that he has always
been just as intelligent and i'm
portant as any one else in the Re
public He put fourteen Of his sons
in the White House; and he did his
full share of the working and fighting
and thinking and inventing all the
way down from George Washington
to James Wilson.
He climbed up by self-help. He
got no rebates, nor franchises, nor
subsidies. The free land that was
given him was worthless until he
took It; and he has all along been
more hlndered than helped by the
meddling of public officials.
The Farmer-Inventor.
His best friend has been the maker
of farm machinery. But this is a
family matter Four-hfths Of the
Harvester kings" were farmers sons,
and the biggest harvester factory is
only development of the small work
shop that always stood beside the
barn. There are no two men who are
more closely linked together by the
ties Of blood and business than
the farmer and the man who makes
his labor saving machines. Neither
one can hurt the other without doing
injury to himself.
The inventor Of the modern pillow,
Iethro Wood, was a wealthy Quaker
farmer Of New York--a man of such |
intelligence as to count
Clay and Webster among his friends.
The late James oliver, the pillow
King" Of Indiana, and David Bradley,
me of his greatest competitors, were
born and bred near the furrowed |
ioil.
Mccormick built his FIRST reaper in
barnyard; so did John F. sieber-
ing, william n. whitley, Lewis Mil
err and c. w. Marsh. And the man
Who owned the first reaper factories,
Dayton S. Morgan, grew up amid the
Jumps Of a New York farm.
The American farmer has always
.rown ideas as well as corn and pota-
oes. That is the secret Of his pros
.erity. It was out in the wheat fields |
Where the idea Of self-binder flashed |
Ipon the brain OF John F. Apploby,
where Jacob Miller learned TO inn
rove the thresher, and George East
rly to build the header, and Joseph |
!. Glidden 70 invent barb wire
Before 1850 there was some pro-
-ress among farmers, but it was slow
IS molasses ia Alaska. They were
rec and independent, and little else.
they had poor homes, poor farms,
ioor implements.
Then came the gold rush to Cali
ornia. What this event did for farm
RS and the world can scarcely be eS-
.ggerated. II opened up the prairies.
ed the hungry banks with money,
ufed the farm iaborers westward 4
nd compelled the farmers TO use
nachlnery.
Three years later the Crimean War
emit the price Of wheat soaring, and
be farmers had a Jubilee Of prosper
.y. Away went tho los cabin, the OK
att, the grain cradle and the Gall. In
anne the frame house. the spring
uegy. the reaper and ne thresher
ne formers began TO buy labor save
ig devices. Better stun. they began
= haven't them.
Farming By Machinerg
Io measure American farmers by
ae ne SIS now an ontsrown nfth-
ID las1io that each farmer