Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-10-02

It Is said that they congest the cities,
hence that they cannot believe in
rural attractions. Farm lands are
cheap and farmers would be delight
ed to employ good men and women,
but the city poor see the disabilities
of country life and shun them.
Farming is hard work. 1t used to
| be from sun to sun" for all; now
for employees it Is only ten hours
while the proprietors work often fif-
teen or more. Wages are high and
help unreliable; hence the farmer
does all he can himself to economic
and make both ends meet. He wears
seedy clothes on six days and Ill fit
ting clothes on Sundays. He is gen
orally awkward in company, not get
ting enough society" to wear off his
awkwardness. AS age advances. he
| often grows round shouldered with
STOPPING work; and too much of what
| the dictionaries call "collOquialism"
! marks his speech.
Still the charge Is that farm pro.
| ducts are so high that farmers are
getting rich. Indeed! Did you ever
see a farmer amass million, half a
million, or even hundred thousand
dollars? Are farmers sen enticed to
stay on the farm by the brilliant
chances fer c,-ly wealth that their
calling offers? Not much. Men do
not shun hard work when the pay is
satisfactory. The farm has one ad-
vantage for bright boys that tells in
city competition-they are trained to
economy and endurance, and If de-
termined to be rich by hook or by
crook they generally succeed. Farm
ing has more attractions than it had
seventy years ago. The social iso-
lation is less; machinery has largely
supplanted hand labor; books, mag
azines and newspapers keep the
farmer and his children from mental
stagnation, and better clothes, and
better horses and other live stock,
with better vehicles and more neigh
borly intercourse, makes him more
presentable. In a word, he lives bet
ter, and he deserves to; but as to
getting rich or getting prices that
outrage the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES!
Many farm products sell much as
they did sixty or seventy years ago
Among these are wheat, rye, and
corn. Oats and buckwheat are high
er. Butter, eggs and milk are high
er. due to greater demand from a
greater percentage of consumers.
The farmer who peddles milk in city
or village probably does not net as
much as he did formerly because of
greater care and cost in production.
Beef is higher, due not SO much to
scarcity as to. Chicago monopolists.
Pork averages no higher, about 1912
it brought 50 a hundred pounds, and
from Sc to So in the later '40s.
If farm products now average
higher in price in recent years it is
as it should be, for farm labor Is
higher, more than doubled. My faith
er could hire young men of the neigh
borhood for IS per month with board
and washing; now it costs SIS and
often more, and is not as good. Some
girl of the vicinity could be hired
for Homework for a dollar week,
sometimes less, board included; but
she was not subjected to caste treat
ment and kept in the background.
She was member of the family, ate
at the same table and sat in the same
pew at church. Now neither native
nor foreign servants are to be had in
the country for love or money. The
stigma attached to domestic service
debars the native from such work,
while the foreign born clings to the
city at almost any price she demands.
Persons investing in real estate ex-
pect to net per cent, and failing
are disappointed. The farmer who
nets that interest from his land above
his living and farm expenses is a
lucky man, a sort of rural prodigy.
Railway investors make 1t or the
stock goes below par. Other stock
companies make it, and often twice
or thrice as much, but there Is no
call on them to reduce prices. Print
ers and publishers make it or change
their business. Bankers make 1t and
much more, or try something else.
The dream of every business man is
to make that much at least, and as
much more as is possible, especially
| as his business supports every hon.
est calling, and some not SO honest
A single short crop in this country,
say two-thirds below the average for
twenty years, would bring on the