Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1879 — Money-Lending Farmers. [ARTICLE]

Money-Lending Farmers.

It is a pleasant thing, we suppose, to have money to lend, rather than to borrow. The" farmer who has money to lend is considered “full handed,” “well fixed" and successful. But this is not always true. There is a class of money-lending farmers who rob their farms, their families and their own souls, in order that they may have money to loan. This class of men are not using wisely their savings, nor are they saving wisely. Wo know a farmer who boasts that he loaned fifteen hundred dollars last year. It will illustrate our point to tell how he made the money. He owns a beautiful farm, which his father bought for him at a bankrupt sale. He went to the farm three years ago. It was in good older and was well imE roved. Since he began farming there e never bought a nail and does not own a handsaw. The numerous pieces of siding split and knocked off his barn, the broken fence boards and caps strewn about the place, tell that he spends neither time nor money in keeping his fences and buildings in repair. He does most of his own work; his wife has no help; his two little daughters milk three or four cows, and drive them to and from the pasture, and feed the hogs. He is a man of strong constitution; never was sick a day, and cares for nothing but making money.’ He does not take a newspaper or agricultural paper. From early morn to dewy eve he is in Ms fields, and has no time to keep his fenco rows and creek banks free from sprouts and vile weeds.

We think if he hired more help and kept his land clear, he make more. Then, too, if he would keep his buildings and fences in repair he would be better off ten years hence. By this method he is impoverishing bis soil and his soul, aud dwarfing his mind aud starving the minds anu souls of his wife and daughters. He is making himself and his family to be mere, beasts of burden and slaves to pelf. It would take more than fifteen hundred dollar% to make that farm and fixtures as good as when the present owner took possession, He is enlarging his bank account, but at a great sacrifice. if some other man had taken that farm, who would have farmed it intelligently, caring that his rotations, and clover, and stock had kept up or im-proved-his soil, and caring that he increased his own store ml useful knowledge,'and that his wife and children, were not overworked, and that their souls and minds were cared for and educated, artd refined by good books and papers, and that they all, as an undiviaea family, were attendants and supporters of the village church, that man surely would have reoeived more comfort from his farm, and would, have made it a blessing- instead of#" place of confinement and servitude for himself ‘tad family.' The improved

condition of his lands, houses, fences and of his family, would be an offset to the $1,600 in bank, and would afford the cultivated and refined nature tenfold more pleasure than the sordid, ever declining nature of the muck raker can ever conceive of. The intelligent farmer has not neglected bis farm or family, and finds that he has still a surplus in the bank. There is a wet strip of land on the rear of the farm wnich, if. drained, would add largely to the income of the place, and increase its healthfulness. Ho has calculated the oost of draining it and finds that a fair crop will pay for the outlay in one year. He considers that a better use of his surplus than to put it out at eight per cent. The drain will pay many times eight per cent., and is a safe investment. He intends next year to put some better sheep on the thin lands, and give them a chance to clear out the underbrush in the timber land. He expects to get that all set down nicely to blue grass in a few years, which will pay better than if left to grow up in briers and weeds. He is making his farm yield more each year, and is free from debt, and has happiness at home, which comes from intelligent, upright living. The fact that a farmer has money loaned is not satisfactory evidence that he has been a successful larmer. The farmer can generally do better with money than to loan it Before he loans his surplus he should see that there is no place on his farm where it cannot be made to pay a better per cent. Then, and not till then, loan your money and take your chances of losing, both interest tmd principal, and increasing your efixea and annoyance, without any adequate returns. — Cor. Practical Farmer.