THE FARMERS NICHE IN OUR CIVILIZATION. 



BY W. C. FITZS1MMONS. 



C VERY WHERE and in all times the 

 -t-' husbandman has stood as the corner 

 stone of individual progress. Upon his 

 broad, unwearying and patient shoulders 

 has been upreared the industrial fabric of 

 the world. Amid all the vicissitudes of 

 individual and national life and advance- 

 ment the farmer has ever remained and 

 still is the indispensable factor, without 

 whose arduous and unremitting toil human 

 society cannot exist, At the gateway of 

 all possibilities in human achievement 

 stands the farmer, and without his consent 

 and co-operation the chariot wheels of 

 progress must stop. From the soil all 

 things must come; to the soil all things 

 must sooner or later return. While all 

 this is true, it is equally true that the 

 farmers have never yet, as a class, taken 

 rank in the modern scheme of things in 

 accordance with their importance and rela- 

 tive value. This is as true in the United 

 States as in other countries, though per- 

 haps in lesser degree. The agricultural 

 classes have been slow to assert themselves 

 and others have traded to their own profit 

 on the modesty of the farmer. Although 

 outnumbering any other class of workers 

 in this country, the farmers have been so 

 long accustomed to allowing others to 

 dictate to them in nearly all things relat- 

 ing to their own interests, that any self 

 assertion has come to be branded as an im- 

 pertinence by men of other avocations, 

 and even by many of their fellow workers 

 on the farm. 



That there is evidence of a coming rad- 

 ical change in this respect is hopefully 

 admitted, although the awakening is late, 

 and less thorough than it should be. 

 Other interests representing commerce, 

 the law, medicine or divinity, are not slow 

 to assert their importance in any and all 

 places, and each takes an especial care to 

 hold a patronizing attitude toward the 

 tiller of the soil. Even the farmers them- 

 selves contribute to the prolonging of this 

 condition by meekly submitting to the 

 dictation of nearly all other classes of men, 

 in matters pertaining to politics, business 



170 



and social conditions. The man who 

 spends most of his time sitting upon a 

 cracker barrel, but sells a few pounds of 

 cheese and sugar, or a basket of eggs 

 occasionally, as proprietor of a country 

 grocery, is a "businessman," while his 

 neighbors are " merely farmers." These 

 may seem trivial affairs and so they are^ 

 but just the same they represent a condi- 

 tion which the educated American farmer 

 should have the courage and spirit to per- 

 sistently and effectually resent. The dig 

 nity of his calling should always be de- 

 fended and insisted upon, but his own 

 relation to his pursuit should not be such 

 as to render his protestations ridiculous. 

 The schoolmaster who should express pride 

 in his avocation, in ungrammatical phrase 

 would merely excite a smile, and the doc- 

 tor who should extol his skill while at- 

 tending his patient's funeral would scarce- 

 ly add to the public respect for his profes- 

 sion. The weed-grown farm proves a bad 

 text from which to preach reform in the 

 national finances, and tumble- down build- 

 ings and fences are no argument in favor 

 of sending farmers to Congress. To be 

 brief, the American farmer needs more 

 education, more intelligent devotion to his 

 pursuit and then more self assertion. 



He should first know his own business 

 thoroughly and then allow no man to dic- 

 tate to him in relation to it. 



At present all farmers depend upon 

 some one else to tell them the value of 

 their commodities. A farmer enters a 

 store and inquires the price of sugar or 

 calico. He also asks what the merchant 

 will pay for potatoes or pork. It is prob- 

 ably not too much to say that right here 

 is the weak place in all agricultural pur- 

 suits. The very fact that the farmer al- 

 lows another to fix the value, not only on 

 what he has to buy but what he has to sell 

 also, accounts, in large measure, for the 

 condition of comparative dependence in 

 which the farmers find themselves. We 

 hear much of the " independence" of the 

 average farmer. It is a myth. The 

 farmer might be, but is not independent. 



