Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1874 — “The Good Old Ways.” [ARTICLE]

“The Good Old Ways.”

At the West as well as at the East it seems to me that the happiness and prosperity of farmers wrnuld be increased by the return —if such a return were possible —to the “good old ways.” I do not mean, nor do I believe, that it is desirable to produce everything consumed so far as possible upon the farm itself, for cloth can be w'oven in mills cheaper than in private houses, and there are better advantages for selling home produce than existed before the era of railroads. At the same time money is too important a factor in the life of modern farmers — we have all of us been more or less corrupted by the high prices and flush money of the war times, and of the plentiful paper dollars prevailing since then, so that w r e have made our comfort depend too much on the ability to spend money. A farmer’s income to be sure, substantial and satisfactory must be very largely in other things than money. An improved home, richer land, more convenient buildings and more carefully bred and reaired stock—these are within his reach without the outlay of much ready money. Home labor and the capabilities of the f arm will supply them if properly directed, and, if patiently waited for, without the hiring or buying of outside helps. The tendency to measure prosperity by the amount of money that a farmer has in outside investments, or that he is able to spend for his pleasure, is giving a wrong direction to our whole system. Farmers cannot hope to compete in this respect with merchants and manufacturers, whose business is much more speculative and full of risks; and who too often give a fictitious evidence of wealth by spending the money which they hope to earn, and which is not seldom lost by farmers and other producers who have trusted them. Taking the whole merchant class of America, including clerks and porters, they would probably show’ at the end of twenty-five years less actual honest earning than tne same number of farmers and farm-laborers. The growing tendency to spend money, and to count their wealth in dollars and cents, rather than in more substantial possessions, is assimilating them more and more to the speculative classes, whom they’ are so apt to decry. Let US get all the real advantage we can out of modern civilization, but let us at the same time avoid, so far as we comfortably can, all that takes cash money; and gives a fleeting pleasure as our only return—American Agriculturist. Pleasant it of romance from Baltimore: Young Englishman applies for work to Superintendent of factory and narrates his History, whereby it appears that he was reared by’ his mother, hiA father having abandoned her in the infancy of his son; Superintendent of factory recognizes his boy; learns that wife has never ceased to mourn the unfortunate difference with husband, and’ finds lad excellent employment; gets leave of absence, a passage for England and goes lor wife.