The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-08-31
MISSOURI FARMERS
MORE PROSPEROUS
THAN EVER BEFORE

Persons who have been in mining
towns in boom days can form some
idea of the enthusiasm in the rural
districts of Missouri at this time. The
farmers, old and young, see wealth
ahead as certainly as did any miner
who ever broke his back trying to
reach lead of ore that would insure
him a fortune.
The farmers talk of crops and high
prices and little else when they find
time to talk at all. Farming never
had such boom in this State as it
is enjoying now. For frty years or
more the average farmer in this State
has considered his LOT hard one. I'm
eXpectedly, conditions have changed.
The days when a shTewd real estate
man could trade some worthless city
property for a big farm with a mort
gage on it are gone. There is little
rural land for sale, and it is not on
the market at excursion rates. Good
rural land is much higher in price
now than it ever was before and farm
ers VINO want to sell out and 90 West
to mend their fortunes are very scarce.
Farmers are not leaving Missouri
now and taking chances on Oklahoma
or any other State. They are MAX
ing money as they never made it be-
fore and the future looks rosy to
them.
Prosperity Is Everywhere.
These conditions are so apparent
anywhere in the rural districts as to
obviate the necessity for picking out
certain spots here and there. There is
something of craze on in the coun-
try districts to get plenty while the
getting is good. 1t is suspected that
this will be attended by some evil re-
suits. In some localities, for exam
pie, farmers are holding on to their
corn under the belief that 1920
bushe!! is not the high water mark, al
though it is the highest price corn
ever sold for in this State, In view
OF the almost certainty of a record
breaking crop being gathered. not a
few well-informed farmers and stock
ralsers expect much lower prices will
prevail.
Immediately following the wheat
harvest, and before some Of the grain
was threshed, wheat was sold at from
w to $3.50 bushel There was a
brief hull, and the grain went up to
$2.5O and stuck there. This caused
some OF the farmers to think that ev-
erything they have to sell ought to
command a much higher market price
than is offered. Just now it seems a
great many farmers do not know
what to ask for their products. They
are afraid that if they sell TODAY the
market will go skyward tomorrow.
Farmers Working Hard.
A large percentage of the farmers,
so competent authorities report here,
are besides themselves with expec-
tatlons for the future, not to mention
the gains in possession or within EASY
sight. The market prices of all kinds
of farm products have been iumninp
from one high point to still higher
point, until the producers have lost
all their old marks of reckoning and
are drifting about on tinted clouds
and dreaming dreams that farmers
never dreamed before. It may be
SAID, however, that while they are
they are not idle. Never
did they have such stimulus to work
They know that the golden stream
will pass at their feet for at least one
more year.
Boys with sense enough to come in
out OF the wet are not leaving the
farms for the cities these DAYS. There
is nothing to lure them from the GER
Ialnty of great reward for their la
bor., Never did the farm promise SO
much as it does now. The old rural
saw about going into the brush and
shaking a pawpaw bush and picking
up bushel of money, is nearer reali-
sation now than ever before.