THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 431 



traded for flour. He buys his meat, his groceries and often his vegetables. 

 The only thing he has to sell is tobacco, and the lack of live stock gives 

 him half a crop of tobacco, whereas, his thrifty neighbor gets 

 a full crop, sells almost everything, and buys almost nothing. This ex- 

 plains why lands are high even in some places in the east and sell for 

 little or nothing in other places. 



Possibly other influences are at work, but we present the above as 

 the best explanation we can give of the seeming paradox that where lands 

 are nearest manufacturing centers they are the lowest in price. The 

 practical question with our readers will be: How much higher must 

 lands advance in the west before the drift will be eastward instead of 

 westward as it was a few years ago and northeastward as it is now? 



RUT FARMING. 



The Homestead. 



It is human nature to get into ruts. We all do it. Ruts are simply 

 confirmed habits, and the older the habit the harder it is to break it. We 

 are all disposed to find fault with our neighbors for getting into ruts, the 

 only difference being that we are in a different rut, though possibly a 

 higher rut, ourselves. There are various kinds of ruts. A very large per 

 cent of the farmers of the west are traveling along the soil-robber's rut. 

 They have been following grain farming, planting corn after corn, or 

 sowing small grain after small grain, year in and year out, and think they 

 have made a great advancement when they alternate corn with oats or 

 wheat. They will go on this way as thousands of other farmers have done 

 until the soil refuses to grow paying crops, with debts accumulating and 

 crop failures frequent, and only then will they be likely to get out of 

 this rut. 



The grower of common stocks looks at them complacently and points 

 out the error of their ways, telling them they must get out of this rut 

 and go to grass, save labor and maintain the fertility of the land by grow- 

 ing the common stock of the country, although unconscious that he is 

 traveling in a little different rut, but still in a rut. He is of the firm 

 conviction that the breed is in the feed, and that his stock is as good as 

 anybody else's if he but feeds them as well, which he says he cannot 

 afford to do. He wants stock that can endure neglect, that does not 

 need to be pampered and babied, and maintains that all Improved stock 

 about himself, whether thoroughbred or high grade stock, is a delusion 

 and a snare. He is bound to keep on in this line until debts accumulate, 

 and he finds that he must either get out of this rut or get off the farm. 

 A grade stock grower has much to say about the rut into which the 

 grower of common stock, or, as he sneeringly calls it, "scrub stock," is 

 uaveling. He compassionates the poor fellow's want of foresight or 

 sagacity, and urges him unceasingly to grade up, to grow stock worthy 

 of the name, all unconscious that he, who, may be traveling in a rut, the 



