People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1896 — The Tenant Farmer. [ARTICLE]

The Tenant Farmer.

I am a farmer, a tenant farm er; for the year, just closed. I have paid S2OO cash rent for£o acres of land. From is farm I nave sold: Oats 122.44 Hay 1T1.2M Pasture *3.60 Stalk field *ll.OO Total 11&5.32 I have a ¥lO haystack yet to sell, 1000 bushels of corn to dispose of and at 22 cents it will bring me $242; so corn and hay yet to sell and the ¥108.32 worth of stuff sold, makes $350.32 worth of produce I have to spare. Now take my S2OO cjsh refit from this and I have, as "rose receipts, for the year ¥150.32. In raising this crop, I had to hire a little help in hay harvest (my oats were raised on the shares and really made more than had I raised them myself) I will say sl2 covered the actual cash I paid for help. In husking, a sprained hand kept me out of the field for a time, and I had to have help which cost me $17.25. Now take the sl2 for harvesting and the $17.25 for husking from the ¥150.32, what I had after paying the S2OO rent, and I have left $121.07. I was lucky the past year, having but little breakage and repairs to see after and I was also blessed with good health, I think $lO will pay nay medicine and repair bills. This $lO taken from the $121.07 leaves me a net balance, for all I can spare off of this farm, of ¥111.07. On this place I have kept, three horses and three cows, I have had a garden, a house to live in and chicken range. I have fatted my meat and have enough feed to keep my cows and horses till another crop is raised. Through the winter I hauled enough wood to town to pay for sufficient fuel to last me till winter comes again. As before said I have had good luck, no farm implements to buyj* have had in my family uncommonly good health, raised an ex tra crop of corn, had no loss of stock and at the close of the year have ¥111.07 with which IQe pay my little tax and clothe myself and family, our marketing paying our grocery bills. With tnese figures'before me I have no great visions of wealth, but on the contrary I am discouraged; let a little ill luck come to my home, let ray team suddenly die, let sickness or a broken limb take me a few months out of .my crop and.where am I? I make no complaint against my land-' lord, for S2OO is none to much' for this piace, it ought to be worth more, but can I pay more and how much more than ¥2OO could the owner make tend ; ng it himself! Prices must change or farmers can't live. How can a man pay ¥18 —$20 per month for farm help, and sell corn at 20 cents, wheat at 55 cents and oats at 16 cents? With the low price of grain goes the low’ price of stock.

The report of the secretary of agriculture shows that since Jan. 1. 1895, the value of live stock in the United States has fallen of 191,520,222. This government report shows that in live stock alone the farmers of this country are nearly one hundred million dollars poorer than they were one year ago. Nothing that the farmer sells has risen or even held its own. while most all he buys has advanced. Wepay more for nails, iron, flour, prints, harness, boots shoes, copper, tin, etc , than we did before the decline in grain and live stock. During this per iod of agricultural depression the railroads have increased their earnings, banking has flourished, taxes have grown higher and official salaries and professional fees have suffered no diminution. This order of things cannot long continue. If farm products come down other things must proportionally decrease; the trusts and combines that are keeping up and advancing the prices of manufactured products; the powers that are holding up transportation tariffs continuing high official salaries and increasing taxation must be controled some way or trouble for this county is not very far away. lam not wise enough to suggest a remedy, but I do think something could be done if the laboring class would lay aside their party prejudice and quit following after these loud mouthed politicians.

HAYSEED.