86 THE IRRIGATION AGE 



The great mistake of the farmer is in supposing that he is the 

 only average man. He thinks the majority of men in business and the 

 professions of all kinds are making money while he is making only a 

 living. But they are all struggling first for the surplus labor of their 

 fellows in order to convert it into bread and clothes. The farmer 

 turns his labor into bread directly, wherein he has an advantage that 

 he little realizes. The great majority of men in business do not, ex- 

 cept during some very exceptional boom, make more than a living, 

 and fully one half of them fail to do that. They are eternally shifting 

 from one failure to another, living off their creditors most of the time, 

 adding to the burden of the next financial crash that is due in the 

 course of things. A very few make far more money than it is possible 

 to make out of the ground, but these are not three per cent, of the 

 struggling mass. The great majority of those who make more than a 

 living make no more than is made in all states and in all times, even the 

 hardest, by a few farmers who are thorough businessmen. On the other 

 hand the proportion of farmers who fail to make a living where they 

 work for that first is amazingly slight and due either to poor con- 

 ditions, poor soil or lack of rain, or something of the sort, or poor 

 health, which cannot be charged up against farming. The conditions 

 that can throw a man in business are far more numerous, and every 

 year narrows the margin on which it is done, so that greater business 

 talent, more unremitting attention, more grinding economy are neces- 

 sary to make even a living as the country grows older and competition 

 more fierce. But the farmer sees men wearing good clothes and driv- 

 ing around in fine buggies and buying cigars in the nickel-in-the-slot 

 machine and thinks they have a fine time. Simple soul. Half of 

 them are dead beats putting on style at the expense of their creditors. 

 Of the half that are honest two-thirds are walking the floor wondering 

 how they are to pull through when the farmer is soundly snoring. No 

 wonder. They are struggling against friction. The great fight is for 

 food. Instead of turning it out of the ground with one wheel they 

 are running two wheels playing on each other, with the sand of com- 

 petition in the bearings instead of grease. They have first to get 

 money which is someone else's labor a hard task for the average 

 man and one that will always be so. In this they are face to face with 

 the fierce opposition of every one else in the same business and with 

 many that are not. But in getting food without money there is no 

 competition. And this is why forty years ago it was a maxim that 

 the farmer is the most independent of men. Too many have drifted 

 away from the old anchorage and made haste to get rich by expand- 

 ing more sail. So great was this temptation that ten years ago the 

 Kansas farmer could not get .rich fast enough on his own boom, but 

 had to come to California to buy town lots. Much talk has been made 

 of the mortgages paid off in Kansas last year. What business had 



