The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1914-07-23
PLAIN TRUTHS.

"The happieSt man IN the lanu W.
dav is the successful farmer. He sits
under his own vine and fig tree I'M
disturbed by the maddening noise OF
the great city. Banks fail, railroads 60
into the hands of receivers, booming
towns collapse, business stagnates'
But the wise farmer can snap MS
fingers at these things. He is mon
arch of all he surveys on his broad
acres"
The above article, written no doubt
by some Professor of agriculture who
never did a days farm work in his lie
and whose salary for teaching farm
ers how to farm is paid out Of farm
ers taxes, has stared US in the face
from the editorial columns of almost
every county exchange that has come
into this office during the past month
and when we don't feel like hunting
I'D the writer and kicking the ever
lasting stuffing out of him, we feel
like going out in the forest and sitting
down in the shade Of tree and tax
ing a long rest.
Talk about the farmer being inde-
pendent. Bosh, He is the world's bond
servant, the one great goat unlver-
sal that everybody milks. His freight
money makes the millions OF the rail-
road magnate, his interest money en-
ables the bankers to do business, his
purchase money keeps the stores
open, his trouble money pays lawyers
their fees, his tax money maintains
the agricultural schools that teach
him how to farm, his conscience
money keeps the preachers alive, his
beer money pays the saloon-keeper's
license, the doctor collects fee for
allowing him to die according to the
methods of modern science, and the
undertaken gets two prices out OF him
for burial casket.
Even this great elucidator of public
opinion and shaper of National destl-
MES would have hard row, to hoe II
it were not for the farmers subscrip-
ton money (Which they will please
pay in advance). It's safe bet that
when everybody else has got their liv-
ing out of the farmer he don't have
such stupendous lot left for subsist-
ence for himself and family.
Talk about farming being a sure
thing. 1t is the greatest gamble in
the business world. Farmers seldom
play poker, the chances of winning,
compared with the business they arc
engaged in, are too numerous to furn-
ish them any excitement. The farm
er's life, from the time he is old
enough to plant potatoes till the time
he himself is planted, IS one never
ending series of taking chances. He
don't know what minute the hail will
ruin his corn, the chitz bugs his wheat,
the bugs his potatoes, the CHAMBERS
get his horses, the black leg his cattle,
the cholera his hogs, the pip his chick
ems, or his wife run away with the
hired man.
The talk of his prosperity is largely
mythical. After the farmer pays his
taxes, his hired help, his interest and
all the incidental expenses he will
generally find that he and his family
have put in more hours at harder
work than those engaged in any other
business or profession and about all
he and they get out of it is their
board and clothes and they are not
always arrayed in costly raiment nor
do they fare sumptious-y every day.
Instead of being Monarch of all he
surveys he comes nearer being sub
ject to everything in sight.
Farming is all right and farmers
are not a valuable but an absolutely
essential element of our body polite,
but the fakirs who farm the farmers
financially, politically, anu every other
way, must take them for blooming
bunch of boobs, if they think they can
make them believe, by little col,-
fdential coming, that their condition
is ideal and that they are pre-emi-
nently better off in every way than
anybody else in the world.