THE DISCONTENT OF THE FARMER. 125 



hours? And the farmer's wife, liow many hours must she 

 work? And the workman's wife? Who ever lieard of an 

 eight-hour day for them What is just for one is just for all, 

 men and women. And the necessary standard of the farmer 

 must be the basis for other standards. 



It seems to me that the farmer and his wife must expect to 

 work twelve hours, on the average, every day, some of the 

 time at light work. I believe they are perfectly healthy in so 

 doing, and happy when they get reasonable satisfactions in 

 exchange for their sacrifices. I think a reasonable satisfaction 

 for a farmer is a comfortable but modest home, abundant but 

 plain food, plenty of stout work clothing, and a good suit for 

 Sunday, a comfortable conveyance to take his family to church 

 in, moderate education for a reasonable number of children, 

 and such an income beyond that as will enable him to safely, 

 when a young man, incur interest-bearing debt for half the 

 value of the land which he tills, with the expectation of pa}'^- 

 ing it off by the time he is fifty years old, and retiring from 

 labor when sixty. For his own blunders or extravagance he 

 must pay, and by as much as he expends effort in this way, 

 by so much he should fail of earned satisfactions in other 

 respects. 1 think tiiis a just standard of life for the farmer, 

 and that the standards of other lives should be based on this. 



Only the stout farmers can now attain this standard — those 

 who would get over the heads of their fellows in any walk of 

 life, not always, by the way, the most useful or the most amia- 

 ble of men, but the most effective. It is unsafe for the farmer 

 of ordinary abilities to incur debt, and without debt it is not 

 usually possible for young farmers to get farms. The reason 

 of it is that too large a portion of their income is taken by 

 capitalists, traders, and workingmen, of whom the latter take 

 by far the most, and yet not sufficient for their necessities. 



It seems, then, to me, that the fundamental cause of the 

 farmer's discontent is the absence from his own mind of a 

 clear-cut ideal of the measure of the reward which is justly 

 due him from society, with, in many cases, a notion more or 

 less vague of an ideal which he could not reach without 

 injustice to other classes; for it must not be forgotten tliat 



