The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1908-07-01
THE AMERICAN FARMER.
lhe Man Who TiIls the Soil Has
Come Into His Own at Last

If the American farmer went ont
or business this year he could clean
up thirty billion dollars, And he
would have to sell his farm on credit.
Tor 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 If
they owned the farms, instead Of
their watered stock. When we re-
member 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 simple 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
imaginations can conceive of such a
torrent of wealth.
Place your finger on the pulse of
your wrist, and count the heartbeats,
one. two. three, four. With every
four Of those quick throbs. day and
night thousand dollars clatters into
the gold-bin Of the American farm
er.
l. How incomprehensible it would
seem to Pericles, who saw Greece in
her Golden Age, il he could know
that the yearly revenue of this
country Is now no more than one
days pay for the men who till the
soil of this infant republic.
Or, how it would amaze resurrec-
ted Christopher Columbus II he were
told that the revenue of Spain and
Portugal are not nearly as much as
the earnings of the Americans far.
mers hen!
Merely the crumbs that drop from
the farmers table (otherwise knowr
as agricultural exports) have brought
him to enough in foreign money since
1892 to enable him. If he wished. t.
settle the railroad problem once fol
all by buying every foot of railroad ir
the United States.
Such is our New Farmer-a mar
for whom there is no name in an!
language. He Is far above the far
mer Of the story-books as q 1908 tour
ing car is above a jinrikisha. Instead
Of being an ignorant hoeman in &
barnyard world, he gets the news b!
daily mail and telephone. and Incl
dentally publishes 100 trade journals
Of his own. Instead Of being a money
less peasant, he pays the interest or
the mortgage with the earnings of &
week Even this is less of an ex
pense than it seems for he borrow.
money from himself. out of his owr
bank. and spends the bulk Of the ia,
money around his own properties.
Farming for a business. not for {
living-this is the motif Of the new
farmer. He is commercialist-s
man Of the twentieth century. He
works as hard as the old farmer did
but in higher way. He uses the
four M's-mind. money. machiney
and muscle: but as little Of the latter
as possible.
Neither is he q Robinson Crusoe OF
the soil. as the old farmer was. His
hermit days are over; he is a man
among men. The railway, the troll
ley, the automobile. and the top bug
gy have transformed him into a su-
burbanite. In fact his business has
become SO complex and many-sided
that he touches civilization at more
points and lives a larger life than If
he were one of the atoms Of a crowd
ed 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. 1t Is still true that the Uni
ted States is the native land Of the
new farmer. He is the most typical
human product that this country has
produced, and the most important,
for, in spite Of his egotistical cities,
the United States Is still a farm based
nation.-Herbert n. Casson, in MAY
Review Of Reviews.
DR. KranSo Porlin hoe xa;o1.,.