The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-12-12
THE FARMERS HARD LUCK

The mail and Breeze, Kansas pa
per says that farming is the greatest
gamble on earth.
What it says is largely if not en-
tirely true.
Listen to the following:
1t may be, it adds, that sometime
the farming business in this coun-
try will be reasonably sure, but at
present the farmer is necessarily the
greatest gambler in the world. He
never knows when he plants crop
that he will gather a harvest. At the
time when he should be planting his
seed in the springtime, Gentle Annie.
the rains probably are falling in tor
rents evry day and when the ground
gets dry enough to plant he finds that
he has just hit the edge of dry spell
which ruins his crop prospects. His
orchard blooms profusely in April and
a belated freeze comes along in May,
and that summer all the fruit he eats
he has to buy at the store. His corn,
perhaps comes up beautifully and he
looks down the long green rows with
pride and satisfaction. The next day
he goes out and discovers that the in
fernal cutworms have got in their
deadly work and his corn has to be re-
planted. The spring, rernaps, Is reas-
onably favorable and his prospects
bright, when with savage joy a mil
lion chinch bugs lope into the fields
and growing crops withers like Jon.
abs gourd. He sows large acreage
Of wheat and sassy Next year I will
make killing" The Hessian fly
hears his gladstone refrain and she
deposits her egg in the growing stalk,
remarks 1--WE will see you later, me
buck"
In the morning he looks out over
his ripening field of what which has
somehow or other escaped the ravages
of the chinch but. the green bug and
the Hessian fly and his eyes brighten
as he sees the yellow wheat wave in
the wind like glorius golden sea, and
then says Tomorrow the reaper will
be busy" Before the morrow comes
a hail storm has swept across his land
and left his field a ruin. He watches
his growing swine and reads with in
terest the market reports and figures
that each Of those hogs is good for
$25 or $50 or maybe even more. The
next day the cholera comes in and the
last one of his beautiful fat swine
passes over into the saccharine sub
sequently. His cows fade away with
the hollow horn and his horses die of
some disease the veterinarians don't
understand, and all the satisfaction
he gets out of it is in watching the
horse doctor wake postmortem exami.
nations of the interior of his dead
equines. and afterward bring in their
bills for futile services rendered. II
he goes into the poultry business his
hens die Of the pip. If he concludes
that there is money in sheep, grub in
the head takes what dogs and coyotes
leave. When he sells his grain early
in the market hits the ceiling a month
or two after he has disposed of his,
and II he holds on the market says
and he loses not only the difference in
price but the loss from shrinkage and
what has been devoured by the rats.
He falls out of tree and breaks a
leg just at the beginning of harvest
and can't get hired hand to take the
place who is worth a whoop in a rain
barrel, and as result loses half of
his crop and he has to pay a doctor
bill besides. He manages to build a
reasonably comfortable house and
says: Here will take a comfort"
A cyclone then comes whooping along
scatters his house over the next two
townships, kills most of his family and
leaves his mother-in-law on his hands
unscratched.
Yes, by necessity the farmer is the
most persistent gambler in the world.
and very often he seems to be play.
ing against fate which deals with
loaded dice.