the average american farmer is one of the best fellows in the world. he also is one of the most unfortunate.
he generally comes to his profession by accident. he may not have meant to become a farmer, but through death, or change of family, or some other circumstance entirely out of his own control, he comes in possession of the family estates, almost certainly encumbered with mortgages, and must continue the family business to secure a living for himself. from the first he is doomed to loneliness, which is one of the worst curses that humanity can suffer. he cannot afford to employ help, for if he had capital he would not be a farmer, and it requires capital to secure proper assistance in the conduct of a farm. he must do all of his work himself. if he cannot do it, it must remain undone. as a rule the farmers of the united states are awake long before daylight in the morning, and their work continues long after dark in the evening. the working hours of the day, which to the{273}
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tacoma building.
ordinary laborer are ten hours, and to more favored classes eight or seven, or even six, are to the farmer as a rule at least fourteen in twenty-four. his work is never done, any more than woman’s.
as a natural consequence he always is tired out. custom and the demand of the markets restrict him generally to a single crop. whether this be wheat, or corn, or oats, the seeding time is comparatively short. so is harvest time. the farm is larger than any one man or family can possibly manage, but american demand being at present only for raw materials, he has no choice. he must plant the staples from which foreign countries are willing to purchase the surplus for cash. otherwise his condition would be worse than that of a slave. it is very hard for any one man to “break up” more than one acre of ground per day with a good team of horses. what, therefore, can the single-handed american farmer, who owns a hundred and sixty acres of ground, the customary “quarter section,” expect to do with his immense estate? to properly care for his family he should plant all of it; but, except in the case of wheat, if he were to plant it all, one-half to three-fourths of the crop would be wasted through lack of necessary cultivation. his horse is like himself, an overworked animal. in any section of the country the farmer is regarded safe who owns a pair of good horses. but{274} animals working twenty-six days per month from sunrise to sunset in the long days of summer cannot be kept up to their work by any amount of feeding or care. sooner or later one or the other of a span of horses may break down, and then the farmer is helpless unless he has money in hand with which to purchase a substitute. not ten farmers thus fortunate can be found in any contiguous hundred.
for the farmer is always poor. if it were otherwise he would not be a farmer. a very little experience on the farm and less observation of men about him show him that there is more money in mechanical or mercantile business, to say nothing of other callings, than his own. but he is handicapped from the start, no matter if he begins young, and while he still is a bachelor. when he has a family on his hands he is simply helpless so far as the possibility of change goes. the average farmer lives in hopes that in time his children, of whom he generally has many, will be of some assistance to him. frequently his hopes are apparently fulfilled for a short time. but children are not as steady as grown people. they roam about in any time which they have to themselves. they reach the villages. they learn of a life which contains less toil and more comforts than that to which they are accustomed, and one by one they begin to intimate a desire for a change. it is utterly out of nature for the{275} farmer to disregard this desire. no matter how much he may love their company he knows in his inmost heart that a change from farm life to some sphere of activity which is less exacting would be a benefit to them physically and mentally, possibly morally also. his sons endeavor to become salesmen in stores, or to be clerks in lawyers’ offices, or solicitors for one business enterprise or another—anything to avoid the persistent and wearing drudgery of the farm. his daughters, in spite of the boasted independence of the farmer, and of his family, are very easily persuaded to go into any factory that there may be in the vicinity. it is not that they love home less, but they love companionship more, and, being like human beings everywhere else, they are keenly sensitive to the cheering influence of money—real cash received once a week instead of a possible balance to the family’s credit at the village store at the end of the year.
for the american farmer is generally at the mercy of the trader. the trader is as good as the average merchant, and is practically a merchant in all respects. he is generally the keeper of a general store at which the farmer during the year purchases everything which he may need for his family on an open account; with the understanding that when his crops are made they shall be turned over to the merchant, and a general balance struck. when there is{276} a good year the result may be in favor of the farmer, but good years are not the rule in the united states, even though the country is, as is said, the garden of the world. people who work and strain their energies to the uttermost require more in the way of ordinary creature comforts than those whose lives are more regular, and, though the farmer may discuss prices with great earnestness with the local merchant, the end is practically the same: he purchases whatever his family wants, so long as he can have it “charged.” he must purchase at the price stipulated by the merchant, for it is utterly impossible for him to look anywhere else for what he may need.
some newspapers have made sensational complaints of the system of peonage to which some southern blacks or freedmen have been reduced by the storekeepers of plantations since slavery days, but there is no practical difference between their condition and that of the farmers the country over. “the borrower is servant to the lender,” and the man who has no money with which to purchase must submit to the exactions of whoever is willing to extend credit to him. farmers’ notes are in the market in almost every county of the united states, and frequently those of which sell at the lowest prices are drawn by men of whose honesty of purpose and intention to pay no one has the slightest doubt. the only reason is that{277} the farmer’s absolute necessities have been in excess of the cash value of his farm products.
it is customary to speak of the farmer’s life as being the happiest and the safest occupation in the world. nearly every one knows of some one successful farmer, and bases his judgment upon his knowledge of that solitary individual. but facts are stubborn things, and they have been proved by figures in the united states in a manner that should make those who are envious of the farmer think again.
according to the last census report the average valuation of the farm-lands of the united states, including buildings, was less than twenty dollars per acre. the average value of the products was less than eight dollars per acre. a quarter section of land, which is the ordinary size of an american farm in the states most devoted to agriculture, is a hundred and sixty acres. the reader may cipher out his own inferences with very little trouble, remembering that groceries, medicines, clothing, and everything else not produced by the farm costs quite as much in the rural districts as in the large cities, and generally a great deal more.
it has been said that the gold produced in the mining districts of the united states has cost far more in labor and physical loss than its value amounted to. the cost of the farm-land in the united states leaves the apparent waste on gold{278} in absolute insignificance. there are thousands of american farms to-day, probably hundreds of thousands, of which the land under the hammer would not bring as much money as the fences of those same farms have cost. the expense of clearing wooded land to fit it for agriculture has been far greater in almost every section of the country than the value of the land at the highest price prevailing would repay. the work of fencing and clearing was done by other generations, who got less from their farms than the present occupants are receiving.
one of the favorite arguments of men who urge younger men to go west and take a farm and grow up with the country is, that they will never lack for plenty to eat. this statement is entirely true. a man can always have plenty of food from his own estate if he cultivates it at all, or has any live stock. but one accompanying fact is, and this fact should be carefully considered—that frequently he has no place at which to market at a profit what he produces. he is so far from any market that what he does not eat he frequently is obliged to waste. corn in the ear has been used during many winters for fuel in portions of the west, not because there was no wood to be had, but because there was no convenient place at which to market the corn, even at the bare expense of shelling and hauling to market, to say nothing of the previous cost of{279} planting, cultivation, and harvesting. where a farmer is near a market, as in some eastern states, his table is no better set than that of the cheapest-paid mechanic in the city. he may have eighty acres of wheat, but if his family wishes to eat a cabbage they are obliged to go to some village market and purchase it; the farmer himself has not had time to plant and cultivate it. summer boarders find fewer vegetables in the country than in the city.
the natural question occurs, why does not the farmer change his business as hundreds of thousands of mechanics and other men are doing every year? the answer is that it is impossible for him to do so. he cannot leave his farm without ruin to his family, for to neglect to plant and cultivate is to lose the credit upon which in ninety-nine cases in a hundred he must subsist. he cannot sell his farm at auction under the hammer as if it were a city house or a village residence, for purchasers of farms are the rarest of all purchasers of real-estate in the united states. this is not in accordance with european precedent or supposition, but it has been demonstrated in every state, and almost every county of the union.
does all this mean that farming will not pay? no. farming will pay if backed by capital as well as practical knowledge. but it is almost impossible that the american farmer of the{280} present generation shall have any capital from any source whatever. farming, when conducted intelligently, can be made profitable in any portion of the united states by a man with sufficient money in his pocket. hiram sibley, one of the most remarkable men whom the united states ever produced, was, at the time of his death, in 1888, managing four hundred different farms in nine different states of the union, conducting all through correspondence, and he made it his boast, in which undoubtedly he was honest, that from each of these farms he secured a profit. but sibley was a millionaire twenty times over, probably forty times. whatever his farms needed they could have at once, and at the lowest market price, for he always had cash to pay for whatever he wanted. nevertheless, this successful farmer, this millionaire, this thorough-going man of business, said, to the day of his death, that there was no more pitiable character in the united states than the farmer.
nobody knows more about any one special business than the man who does not have to attend to its details, so there is a widespread opinion and assertion that the trouble with the farmer is that he is improvident. men call attention to the expenses, apparently unnecessary, which he is continually making, particularly in the direction of comforts and even luxuries for his family. but what can the farmer do?{281} everywhere east of the mississippi river he is near a village. his children go to school with those of the village. they learn of comforts and luxuries to which they are not accustomed at home. they talk about them. they think about them. they long for them. the farmer himself is a human being. any one who mistakes him for a boor makes a terrible blunder. whenever it is in his power to make his home more comfortable he does so with a degree of earnestness that is almost terrible. he is anxious to save himself from the possible imputation, by his own children, of being a less careful provider than any one with whom his family are on intimate terms.
when there comes a year in which crops promise well, the farmer will buy anything that his family may want, if he can pay by giving his note of hand, to fall due after the yield of the year is sold. makers of sewing-machines, organs, pianos, venders of furniture and bric-a-brac, agents of subscription-books, go first and most steadily to the farmers with their wares. the farmer will give his note, the vender will find some one who will discount it, and in the end it must be paid or compromised. if the crops go well everything is paid—perhaps. if not, the farmer is deeper than ever in the morass of debt. he has the consolation, apparently slight, though it is great to him, that his family{282} has enjoyed some of the benefits of villagers whom they have envied, and that some day, somehow, he will get even with the world for it. perhaps this apparent extravagance of his will keep his family together longer than the family of his neighbor a or b or c, from which the boys have drifted into village stores and shops, and the girls into domestic service in the town, or perhaps into factories, all to avoid the hard work, but still more, the loneliness and barrenness of the average farmer’s home.
how helpless and unpromising is the present condition of the american farmer can best be imagined by a glance at the farming interest as it exists at present in the new england states. here, within the lifetime of the present generation, mills have dotted the sides of every river and brook that has sufficient power to turn a wheel. thousands of people are gathered closely together every few miles along these water-courses, working in mills and factories, and absolutely dependant upon the surrounding country for their food supplies. yet in no other section of the country are there so many abandoned farms. a short time ago the twelve best farms in the state of vermont were practically abandoned because it seemed impossible to their owners to work them without a loss, and a bill was introduced in the legislature to exempt these particular farms—which, again i repeat, were the{283} best in the state—to exempt these farms from taxation so that some one might be persuaded to work them. it is not that the farmers have no market for what they produce, but that the finer farm products, or what in the larger cities are called the products of market-gardening, are of a nature so perishable that the profitable promise of a good soil may be speedily lost by the loss of the field itself after gathering.
even near the large city of new york, where some men pay the interest on land worth five thousand dollars per acre for the sake of tilling it for market-gardening purposes, there are thousands of acres of ground utterly neglected year after year, as they have been for the past twenty years. it is possible that some of these might have been tilled to profit, but, with a steady demand for labor in the cities for which sure and frequent pay is guaranteed, the farmer’s sons and daughters left their home, and the father was left without assistance and without means to hire help. even had he hired it, the results would have been the same—the balance on the wrong side at the end of the year.
frequently the suggestion is made that the farmers should receive a bounty from the government or from his state on special products, and this system, so far as individual states are concerned, is in partial operation. the farmer himself is distinctly of the opinion that, while legislation{284} provides special relief and assistance for nearly every other class in the industrial world, he should not be neglected. when he begins to demand such assistance, as he is now quite willing to do, there will be before the public a question of greater magnitude than any labor problem which has yet appeared. special legislation has an unpopular sound, but the fact exists, as any follower of congressional and legislative proceedings well knows.
the granger movement in the west was the initial of this attempt at improving the farmer’s condition. like other great popular movements, it began with a sudden impulse, in which there was more earnestness than intelligence; yet any observer of the necessities of the farmer and the management of the railways knows that there was a substantial basis of sense to it. for a great many years the railways took the lion’s share of the farm’s yield, on the plea that it cost that proportion of the value of the crop to move corn or wheat or pork to market. why it took so large an amount is well known in the case of many roads, which by watering their stock or subsidizing construction companies were capitalized at several times their value. in the future efforts of the farmer to secure recognition and proper compensation for his service, the factors of the problem may not be so distinct, but, unless something is done in the direction of legislative{285} assistance, the farms of the west must in time be deserted as largely as those of the eastern states, in which there are now thousands of farms in which not only the land, but the buildings, are without occupants, and are at the service of anyone who may be fool enough to occupy them—that is the farmer’s way of putting it.
it has frequently been suggested that the farmer could save largely from the financial results of his year’s work by participating in co-operative movements for the supply of stores and other necessities of his family on his farm. it may not be known to theorists that this suggestion has nothing new in it. it occurred to the farmer in hundreds of counties, and he endeavored to act upon it. but what can a man do in the way of purchasing from first hands, who has no capital with which to purchase? farmers’ stores and farmers’ clubs were tried, to a large extent, forty or fifty years ago, all over the states which now are the most populous section of the mississippi valley. sometimes the effort resulted in the establishment of depots of supply for farmers alone, but a single year of bad crops, whether caused by drought or insect pests or overflows, or any other cause entirely outside of the control of the farmer, would cause the ruin of any establishment which chanced to be started with capital sufficient only for a little while.
as before stated, and as must be kept in mind{286} in each and in all considerations of the farmer’s lot and the farmer’s future, the agriculturist of the united states is almost always a man without capital, and a man whose constant struggle is to be equal by his output to his daily demands. when a farmer’s store failed, the deficiency had to be made up in cash, even if some of the backers had to sell their estates. bankruptcy proceedings or “arrangements” with creditors were not easy. it is no exaggeration to say that it would be far easier, in most parts of the united states, to sell a white elephant or a million-dollar diamond than to turn a farm into cash at short notice, although the seller were willing to submit to a ruinous sacrifice. there are hundreds of thousands of farmers in the better and more fully settled states, who for years have had their estates in the market, and been willing and anxious to sell at a loss, yet have been utterly unable to find a purchaser, except among men of their own class, who had no money to pay in advance and who could simply offer a mortgage as security for future payment, and from which mortgage, in case of default on interest or principal, nothing could be obtained for a year or more, and even then only after proceedings most uncomfortable to institute and likely only to result in a terrible sacrifice to the creditor. the number of men who are “land poor” in the agricultural districts of the united states is almost beyond computation.{287} the man who has a farm of two or three hundred acres, nominally valued at a hundred dollars per acre, is supposed to be worth twenty or thirty thousand dollars and quite good for all his debts. the truth is that often he suffers more for lack of some small necessity for which cash must be paid than the city mechanic or laborer, who receives only a few dollars per week for his services.
why doesn’t he borrow from a bank, giving a mortgage for security? bless you, no bank that would lend to farmers, on the risks and time usually necessary, could continue in business.
the suggestion may be startling, but still it is practical, that it may yet be necessary, for the proper feeding of the community, that farming, like the policing of cities and the maintenance of an army and the conduct of the postal department, shall be done at the expense of the government. this seems to have been the method in egypt in the days of pharaoh and of joseph, his steward, and america may yet have to revert to it. the government will have either to manage the farms or assist the farmers; the people may choose which shall be done.
