Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1901 — for the farmer. [ARTICLE]

for the farmer.

Farming is not sufficiently profitable to Justify one in paying 20 per cent interest on money for a few months’ use, and yet that is exactly what many farmers are doing, says Alva Agee In The National Stockman. Freight rates add materially to the price of all fertilizers. On this account a dollar unit Is not more than a fair price for available phosphoric acid. Buying for cnnh. one need not pay more than a dollar for each unit In the figures giving percentage of available phosphoric acid. The farmer may buy 15 per cent goods for sls if he buys his fertilizer with the same method that he uses in buying a barrel of sugar. But the credit system prevails, aud the result Is that more phosphoric acid Is sold for $1.25 a unit thau for a less price. The same condition of things in a less marked degree prevails in the farm implement business. There is a “long” and a “short” price. The country merchant selling on credit must furnish supplies to farmers at relatively high prices or else go into bankruptcy. No blame attaches to the manufacturers and merchants for demanding comparatively high prices for farmers’ supplies so long as the farmers demand credit. There are big risk and expense in the credit system, and the consumer must foot all bills, or else merchants must go bankrupt. This or that measure is proposed for the betterment of the farmer’s condition, but there is nothing obtainable that would effect It more quickly than the abolition of the credit system. Most men who have Sufficient credit to secure any goods on time have sufficient credit to borrow the cash needed for their purchase. The Interest would be a trifle as compared with the interest really paid under the credit system. The dealer assures a safe man that he does not need or want the cash, and this may be true, because his credit price covers the charge for the use of the money two or three times over. But if farmers insisted upon low cash prices and none asked for credit dealers would and, could make lower prices. The saving in fertilizers alone would be a huge sum, providing farmers bought intelligently. There could be a great saving all along the line that would be satisfactory to dealers and consumers. It is the latter who make high prices necessary. Cheap as many articles are, no price Is low enough until it is the lowest cash price whicli gives the dealer a safe profit and enables the consumer to reduce his' bills materially. If necessary, borrow the money, but pay cash and buy right.

Grnbworma. An Ohio farmer writes to The National Stockman that much damage has been done in that section this year by the common white grubworm, It having completely destroyed many meadows, pastures and wheatfields and In others has worked In patches. One splendid blue grass pasture a short time ago now has nothing left green except the thistles. It does not trouble clover at all, and a field of corn planted on heavy sod escaped when other fields around it were destroyed last year, aud this year wheat upon the same field has not been touched. He believes a three years’ rotation of clover, corn and wheat would keep the worms away. In his pastures he succeeded in destroying many of them by moving the hens to the Infected spots. They devoured large numbers of them, and with small, portable houses they would probably clean them out if there were hens enough to each field. Such patches will have to be plowed ayd sowed or planted next year, and he Advises clover, with timothy and blue grass, as the best seed to exterminate them.