228 Our Farming. 



They have paid during the dull years lately gone through. Of 

 course, there are wrongs that ought to be corrected by legislation, 

 and will be in time, but in most cases they are slight compared 

 with what the individual farmer can do for himself. We pay 

 more than our share of the taxes, sometimes, but my entire taxes 

 for a year are no more than I have in one season got from the 

 draining of a quarter acre frog pond. One evening last winter 

 at an institute a farmer was going on at a tremendous rate about 

 the great salaries paid county officials. It seemed as though, from 

 his talk, that one thing was holding him down beyond all hope of 

 rising. The Auditor was in the audience and quietly slipped out 

 and returned with the figures showing, if I remember correctly, 

 that all of that farmer's taxes that went in that direction was four- 

 teen cents. Railroads do charge too much when they have no 

 competition, sometimes, as I fear some farmers would. But a 

 great many farmers have no reason to complain. I can send 

 wheat to Cincinnati for six cents a bushel, or potatoes to the East 

 for about thirteen cents a bushel. One cannot complain at these 

 prices. Yesterday I got a new cultivator from Philadelphia, and 

 the freight was only thirty-four cents, and on two it would have 

 been no more. At these prices the railroads are not making as 

 large a percentage of profit, nothing like as my cement stable 

 floor and covered barnyard pay me. 



Good farmers are now making a large percentage of profit at 

 present prices. At an institute last winter it was said that the 

 national bank of that place was paying a dividend of 8 to 10 

 per cent, on its stock, and as a result this stock was selling at a 

 premium of 40 per cent. We have not a few farmers who are 

 doing as well or better than this. But you say the masses are 

 not doing well. This is undoubtedly true. But why not let them 

 slowly work into better methods and make money too, the same 

 as their more progressive brethern ? Is there any reason in the 

 world why the individual reading this book cannot, with profit to 

 himself, do this ? Don't worry too much about the mass, but save 

 one man at a time. Organization will help, help to get our rights 

 in numerous ways, and is a grand, good thing, but it can never 

 in justice raise the price of farm products, nor can it without 

 regard to justice, for there are too many farmers to ever hold to- 

 gether. When by good methods twenty-five bushels of wheat 

 can be raised per acre and pays a fair profit, no ten-bushels-per- 

 acre man has a moral right to demand that wheat be held for a 

 price that will pay him a fair profit. This is not the way other 

 business men think of doing. In my town during the time I have 

 been farming nearly every business man has failed. Some sunk 

 fortunes, and many thousands of dollars of other people's money. 

 Why is it that eight or nine out of every ten business men fail 

 sooner or later ? Largely the same trouble that the mass of 

 farmers have, competition. A few make money, the mass fail. 



