The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-03-05
HOW FARMERS GROW RIcH
The Rush to the Cities Has Increased
His Market


rhe Rush to the Cities Has Increased
His Market
The rush to the cities is putting a
premium on the services the farmer
renders the community and the far
ner sees to il that he gets all IN
IS coming to him We are importing
potatoes and other vegetables today
because our farms have not produced
enough to supply the demand. Even
butter has been imported from Eur
ope and flaxseed and linseed Oil from
all over the world, yet these are re-
garded as articles Of export as a
rule. While the last grain harvest
was somewhat disappointing it was
a fairly good crop and
but little below the average of past
years. The prices of farm produce
are in many cases double what they
we're in the nineties, because the acre
age planted has not grown with the
population. In 1890 about thirty-six
per cent of the people Of the United
States lived in cities, while today full
ly forty-six per cent are urban dwell
ers. In the past ten years population
has increased about twenty per cent
and acreage under cultivation less
than nine per cent. The acreage
planted in wheat, the great food crop
for human use, has actually declined,
and only once in the last decade did
it equal the acreage planted in 1901,
the first year of that period.
MI. 4. Ia h, Co.
is much heard of, but little is seen
of it. Meanwhile the city-ward move
ment is general all over the land. The
number of farms has increased about
ten percent with a slight reduction
in the average acreage under cultiva-
ton on each farm, but the average val
ue of farm land has grown from S15
to 1872 an acre while the number of
mortgages has been reduced and two
thirds of the farms of this country
are free from debt. Farmers have
added fully seventy per cent to the
value of their buildings and machin-
cry in the same length OF time. The
secretary of agriculture estimates the
value of last years product OF the
soil at nine billion dollars.
In the lean year Of the middle nine
ties the farmer saw ffty-cent wheat
and five cent cotton staring him in
the face. Today these prices ere dou
bled and they have been much higher
quite recently. Men who know the
business and are industrious take ne
chances in sticking to the farm. Fol
them competition Is growing less
rather than greater all the time. Th'
boy from the farm can come to thu
city and compete with its dwellers
and with what success the biograph
ers of most of our leading men tel
plainly; but the city boy has a poo
chance on the farm. Hard hands cal
do light work, but soft hands canno
handle the pillow or the axe withou
painful conditioning through blister
and callouses.
Farming is the best business TO
the farmer. Even he does not know
how well he is off today.
In the last analysis, those who cor
sumo but do not produce agriculture
raw material are paying more an
more for 1t, and the farmer will col
tinue to make more and more year a
ter year as long as this relative gal
in city population over rural col
tinues. The farmer will keep on In
proving his opportunities and sellin
his produce for the highest mark'
price until the point is reached wher
? the people will be forced to reduC
the amount and quality of the foe
they consume.
Anything that checks the prosperit
of the country, except only ere
failure, will tend to lower prices
farm produce by reducing the demar
The farmer is reaping the benefits
the high cost of living today and
should be willing to pay few cen
more-twenty-three cents in the exa
figure-for a good suit of clothes
help an industry which provides
, great market for his goods along Il
Atlantic seaboard. 1t may not be
the interest of the country at larg
but it is to the interest of the farm
now on the ground, that the popul
ton of the mill towns and cities
the East should grow faster than tn
of the rural districts. In the CONN
elections the farmer should count II
only the high cost of living but VIII
n he gets out of it.-New York Coz
q mercial.