518 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



between husband and wife, and where both have aided in acquiring, would 

 have all property go to the survivor. 



RIGHTS OF THE FARMER. 



BY D. A. SHAFFER. 



Read at the Albion Institute, February 10, 1889. 



Although the rights of the farmer in the past have been the last to be 

 recognized, we are pleased to notice one more item being added to our list 

 of rights during the present month. Agriculture has been recognized as 

 needing a more advanced position at the seat of our government, and our 

 bureau of agriculture has been replaced by one of more dignity and impor- 

 tance, a cabinet position, and the agriculturist is now to be represented in 

 the deliberations of our executive. 



Again, one of the many obnoxious laws in the interest of the few and to 

 the disadvantages of the many, is the patent law of the United States. About 

 the only rights the farmer has in these laws are the right to be swindled and 

 the right to defend himself in court, in case he practice any improvement 

 upon which some sharper has seen fit to secure a patent. Many of you here 

 present, remember the remarks of an agent of a Hedge Pence Go., made 

 before this club, stating that his firm had some twenty patents on the 

 manipulations of growing, training and lopping of hedges. Now, is there a 

 doubt in the mind of one here present, that the greater part, if not all of 

 these twenty schemes, upon which patents have been procured, were practiced 

 by the practical farmer of the West, before such patents were granted. But 

 these patents may preclude the very originators of these several plans from 

 practicing their own improvements in making a hedge. For all who have 

 visited the West have seen hedges grown on the same plan as these patents, 

 long before hedges were grown in the East, and most Western hedges are 

 lopped or laid down and woven. These patent laws have led to great abuses 

 and monopolies by re-issues in the matter of barbwire fencing and drive 

 wells. 



Still, it is equally true that our country has made advances by, and through 

 the operation of our patent laws, unparalleled in the history of the world. 

 But why make millionaire monopolies by re-issues. The object should be to 

 remedy the abuses while guarding the advantages, and the rights of the farmer 

 imperatively demand that these laws be revised. 



What does an honest man want in a free country like this? Simply fair 

 laws which protect all classes alike, and by which he may, if he will, create 

 for himself the necessities, the comforts, nay, even the luxuries of life with- 

 out interference, so long as he does no injustice to his neighbor, and in spite 

 of the lazy and narrow coward, who is ready to destroy with dynamite what 

 he lacks the industry to get for himself. The farmer has the right to make 

 laws for himself and can do so by sending farmers to represent him, and not 

 as at present, by the lawyer, merchant and saloonist. For who so well knows 

 the wants of an agricultural constituency as one of themselves. Farmers 

 must organize or go down under the combinations, pools and trusts which 

 are eating our very substance. Even our middlemen, dealers and grocers 

 combine to hold their own prices, while setting prices on our products. 



