226 
<Ihc RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 8, 1019 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
This scheme of providing farms for sol¬ 
diers has run off into all sorts of angles. 
As I understand the original plan by Sec¬ 
retary Lane, it does not mean any large 
number of farms put into production at 
once.. His plan seems to be more for pro¬ 
viding for the future. The men will be 
offered chances at Government work in 
clearing, draining and fitting laud so that 
some time in the next 25 years it can be 
made available for farms. The trouble 
is that while such a plan might be worked 
without seriously interfering with farm¬ 
ing as now conducted, a lot of people, who 
know nothing about it, or who have some 
selfish interests to serve, are likely to do 
great damage. These people preach the 
doctrine that cheap food—no matter 
where or how it is pi'oduced—is the essen¬ 
tial thing. They would like to double 
the number of farmers and the number of 
acres under cultivation and thus flood 
the country with food. Some of these 
people are honest in this, through ignor¬ 
ance ; others would deliberately cripple 
the power of the farmer and reduce him 
to an inferior position by forcing him into 
unfair competition. 
* * * 4c * 
I know what such competition means, 
as I went through it. In 1S7S, when lit¬ 
tle more than a mere boy, I left New Eng¬ 
land and went direct to Colorado. At 
that time industrial affairs in New Eng¬ 
land were in bad shape, largely due to 
the fact that thousands of the most en¬ 
terprising men and women of the country 
towns had “gone West.” The free or 
cheap land in the Western States had at¬ 
tracted many old soldiers and their sons 
and daughters. Their going had discour¬ 
aged those who remained. The country 
district where I was brought up was 
typical of many other farming sections. 
Most of the active men left were con¬ 
vinced that farming in New England was 
dead. That cheap, rich land in the West 
had already begun to ship its immense 
surplus of bread and meat back to the 
Eastern markets. There it sold at prices 
eo low that our Eastern farmers were 
convinced that they could not compete. 
So they quit farming in large part, and 
worked in factories or did piece work at 
home. Strange as it may seem, when 
these people earned and saved $100 or 
more they sent it out West for investment 
in farm lands, thus increasing the compe¬ 
tition and adding to their own ruin. 
***** 
Just before I started for the West I 
visited the old place and looked about. It 
was a depressing experience. Not only 
the country, but the small towns were 
gloomy. Food was cheap, but its very 
low cost had proved a disadvantage. The 
farmers and country people had smaller 
incomes and thus a lower purchasing 
power. Thus the towns were deprived of 
their best home market, for cheap West¬ 
ern food had made Eastern farming un¬ 
profitable, and thus cut down the buying 
power and the social power of these farm¬ 
ers. Nor were the factory towns prosper¬ 
ing on “cheap food.” The country round 
about was discouraged, home demand was 
cut off and for some unexplained reason 
the people at the West who it would seem 
ought to be prosperous were not buying 
shoes and knives or watches as they ought 
to have done! Land values had dropped 
50 per cent and there was practically no 
sale for land. I remember one old couple 
who owned a farm of about 50 acres. The 
man had worked for years picking up 
stones until hie fields were clean. Before 
the war it seemed like a sure thing that 
this piece of land would support them, 
or, if they did not care to work, that it 
could be sold and so provide for them. 
“Cheap food” had practically driven that 
smooth, clean farm out of production. 
There was no sale for it, nor could it 
compete with Western farms as security 
for a mortgage. This same condition was 
to be found all over New England. Cheap 
food simply meant that too much farming 
had been done, and too much food pro¬ 
duced, and “cheap food” meant cheap 
farms and cheap farmers. That was 40 
years ago, and I have seen since then 
many seasons come and go, and many 
ups and down of agriculture. In all that 
time I have never seen anything like per- 
-manent farm prosperity during any period 
of “cheap food” or “bumper crops.” 
Farmers have been prosperous only when 
they could obtain fair prices for their 
produce. 
***** 
I can remember as though it were yes¬ 
terday the Monday morning we left Bos¬ 
ton. I was on an immigrant train, and 
this gave us a full chance to “see the 
country” and talk with the “home-seek¬ 
ers.” At every little New England town 
half a dozen or more boys and men 
climbed on the train. Some were strong, 
hearty people; others were evidently 
“lungers,” with the bright eyes and short 
cough which betrayed the consumptive. 
They all had one thought in common. 
“Cheap food” from the West had mad? 
farming on their hills an impossible v..sk j 
They all had the idea that if they could 
only get out to the country where this 
cheap food was produced they would 
surely find prosperity. There must be 
two sides to every industrial proposition, 
and if this abundance of food was ruin¬ 
ing the New England farms it must be 
making the farmers who produced it rich 
That was the way we all reasoned as that 
slow train carried us farther and farther 
into the West. I know better now. for 
time has shown that the farmers of one 
section cannot become permanently pros¬ 
perous at the expense of farmers in an¬ 
other part of the country. At that time, 
40 years ago, we young fellows thought 
we had only to go to the origin of this 
“cheap food” in order to make our for¬ 
tune. 
***** 
We traveled an entire week, and then 
got off the train at a little Colorado town. 
Here w*e were at the “origin” of cheap 
food, but I was forced to admit there 
were few signs of prosperity. The town 
seemed to have been dumped off the rail¬ 
road and then arranged on the prairie 
somewhat as a child might set up his 
blocks. It is a good-sized “city” now, 
prosperity having come to it with higher 
prices and a home market. At that time, 
however, it w T as having a desperate strug¬ 
gle for existence, though wheat and wool 
and cattle were pouring into it. Here was 
the “origin” of this cheap bread and 
meat which was turning so many New 
England farms into deserts. While this 
rich, raw land would produce tremendous 
crops without manure or fertilizer, the 
production was so large that prices were 
too low to make farming profitable. In 
Nebraska, a few hundred miles east, at 
that time farmers were hauling ear corn 
into town and selling it as a substitute 
for coal! So much corn was produced 
that there was actually no food market 
for it. Thus, in one week I had come 
from one end of the game to the other. 
In New England farmers were facing 
ruin as the result of “cheap food.” They 
could not compete in production with the 
flood of bread and meat which the over¬ 
production of the West forced upon them. 
In the West this “cheap food” had creat¬ 
ed another condition. So much bread 
and meat were being produced that there 
was little or no sale for it, and farmers 
faced ruin as did their Eastern brothers— 
though for the opposite reason. 
***** 
I came West with my mind picturing 
the old man and his wife on the Eastern 
farm—the work of their life wasted by 
the decline in farm values. Before I had 
been in the West a week I found another 
case. This man and woman had bought a 
farm and mortgaged it for $2,500 at 12 
per cent. They were to pay in wheat, 
and when the contract was drawn this 
grain sold at $1 per bushel. Now wheat 
had fallen to 60 cents, and the money 
lender wanted his money. “Cheap food” 
had put one blasting hand upon the New 
England farm and the other on the prai¬ 
rie home. One day on the streets of that 
little town I saw a woman with the 
most remarkable clothing I have ever ob¬ 
served. She was a fat woman—thick and 
broad. Her waist had been made out of 
flour sacks. She stood back to me, and 
the sack had been cut and fitted so that 
the brand or name of the flour stood out 
at the back, “Belle of the Prairie.” Doz¬ 
ens of men and women here at the 
“origin” of food—where we young fel¬ 
lows had expected to find great prosperity 
(Continued on page 240) 
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