Weekc_
"uoT    *^\
VOL. XXVI.
',  '',     Jvl   ._"*7
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., OCT. 31,1891.
NO. 44
Farmers Do Need More Legris„ttIo_T'
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Yonr correspondent, D. K., who gave ns
clod-hoppers so much good advice in last
week's Farmer, is no doubt a learned
man, he may be a lawyer for all I know,
bat some of Ms sage remarks won't stand
logic, if I know anything abont it, and I
got a smattering of it when I was going to
school. By the way its a study I want
to recommend for that reading circle you
talk so much about. D. K. says lots of
good things about better icanagement, less
waste land, more fruit trees, better fences,
more care of machines and so on. Farmers
need this kind of advice, at least many of
them do. But when he says, as he does in
the first part of his piece, that it is safe to
say that, because the resolutions passed in
the farmers' conventions were not enacted
into laws, none of them were feasible, he
says what does not follow, a non sequitur,
asmylogiobookhasit. He might aa well say
that all the laws we have were enacted be
cause they were feasible, and the reason
we have no more laws is because no more
laws are feasible. I suppose feasible
means all right, or something of
that sort, doesn't it? Let me put the
thing into logic. All measures that
are feasible are enacted into laws. The
measures that the farmers proposed to the
last legislature were not feasible ;theref ore
they were not enacted into laws.
Now I dispute the major premise, and
claim that many of those demands the
ranne_«i__.de were _ll right and ought to
have been passed, and that it doesn't follow because a measure proposed'is all right
that it's going to be made into a law. Not
by a good deal, and if D. K. is a lawyer he
knows it. He knows it if he is only a
farmer. That's just the point. He has
the question. The demands were right
and yet the Legislature didn't make them
into laws.
Again he says "all that a farmer needs
to make him prosperous is to have something to sell." That's worse than bad
logic. If D. K chances to be a lawyer, and
has the average amount of brains with'the
rest of them, and has read up pretty well
in his books, would he admit that that
was all that he needed to make him a success in his business? No sir, he must have
a lot of us fool farmers to work on, and
the more of us he can get to law ing with
one another tbe bigger his success will be.
If he is a doctor brains and medical lectures
and pills are not all he wants by a long
ways. He must have silly women to get
sick or think they are and badly raised
children to get the colic and whooping
cough, to give him something to practice
on and make out bills for. And so the
farmer must have a market for what he
has to sell. He must have customers for
his grain and his pork, and this is one of
the things he wants Uncle Sam to give
him.
Next D. K., says that the only way to
help the sick or indebted farmer by legislation is to give him a pension and put
him on the list of those who cannot take
care of themselves. That's not so. The
farmer doesn't ask anything from the
Government but fair treatment. He
wants no special favors. He demands fair
rates for transporting his crops, a fair rate
of interest, just and equitable taxation
(this he has a good prospect of getting in
this State) reasonable salaries for public
officers, abolition of trusts and combines,
overthrow of the whisky business, Government control of railroads and telegraph
lines, a graded income tax, etc. These are
reforms that will help all classes nearly,
and one class as much as another.
Farmer Steve.
Prosperity of our Industrial Classes.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
In your valuable paper of September
26th is an article by Frazlei_Thomas, of Car-
oil Co., in which he says he Is unable to
see how I can endorse our present monetary system. I could not endorse it, if I
conld see it in anything like as mean a
light as he does.
The distress he depicts, does not exist
in the bounds ofthe United States. There
is every opportunity for men of good
habits, who are willing to take hold of the
industries that present themselves, to live
comfortably. It is untrue and a slander
on the city of New York, and on the
Nation in which that great city exists, to
say that "one half ofthe people who die
in that great city are" either paupers or
convicted criminals; it is untrue, and a
slander on the State of Indiana, to say
"we have now an annual interest quoted
at $51,000,000." He cannot show authority for one third of that amount and a
large amount that be could show authority for would be owing from one neighbor
to another, or to the school funds, and
other incorporated funds within the
State, by which we all might be more or
less benefitted. Fifty-one million dollars'
would about equal seven per cent of the
appraised value of all property, both real
and personal, in this State; it is false and
unwise to say, or intimate that the government ever did "retire and burn up a
billion and a half of greenbacks," for
there never was half that amount issued;
it is equally false .to intimate that silver
was.demonetized. It has been money
ever since resumption, it was money before suspension, and was one of the two
metals that measured the .value of our
currency during the suspension.
AUsuph statements are wild and unreasonable. I am sorry that any of the industrial class of people can be imposed
upon by them. It is to be hoped thatthe
Farmer's Reading Circle will be instrumental in imparting better information to
the working classes of the country.
He says "there are known only two
ways by which the industrial classes may
correct the evils of which they complain.
One is by the suffrages of the people, and
the other by the saber and bayonet."
Here he is badly informed again. Nin-
ty per cent of the American industrial
classes boast ot being the best paid and
the happiest people on earth, which they
accredit to our just and liberal system of
government.
Though our financial system is not perfect, and is susceptible of much improvement, it is sound and generally just in its
workings. It has taken a long time to
build it up, and we cannot afford to make
any radical changes in it. It may be improved so as to give the farmers better opportunities, but it can never, in justice to
other people, be made to pay the farmer's
debts. It is always ready to afford him
the measure by which his debts can be
paid, provided he uses the proper, exertions, and has not ventured too far, and
that is all any honest industrious citizen
could ask. M. B. K.
Aurora.
ler of seven feet long we have but a few
feet of the roller on the ground at once.
We used a thirty inch stone roller and another log one made of gum. The log was
20 inches in diameter and it was much
lighter than the stone one, but it run easier
and did better work. D. M. A.
Kansas.
A Good Plan for Keeping- Apples.
Editors Indiaua Farmer:
My plan for keeping apples is to gather
about the 10th to 20th of October and to
store them as gathered in an out house for
a week or two. I then make a pit over a
tile ditch by digging one foot deep, four
feet wide, 12 feet long. I next floor this
with good hard wood lumber, as pine will
give its taste to the fruit. For sides and
ends I use two _ eight inch planks. Now
you have a box, four feet wide, 16 inches
deep, 12 feet long. Sort the apples care*
fully and fill to rounding fall. Take a
piece of timber six inches square for a
ridge pole; rest it on pieces put endwise
at the ends so as to make a roof at half
pitch. Cut plank for roof and break the
joints. Now cover with dirt five or fix
inches deep, rounding up at the ends.
Leave a small hole at each end of the
ridge pole for air to circulate. When
wanted forme remove a barrel full to the
cellar, and fill the vacancy in the pit with
straw. My experience is by this plan the
apples have a better flavor than when
kept in a callar. Ran Bekoy.
New Cumberland.
Drag* or Boiler.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Some one asks which is the best, a drag
or a roller? Both have tbeir places. For
leveling the ground the drag is the best.
If the ground is dry and cloddy the roller
will pulverize the clods the best. To do
the same amount of work the drag requires
the most power. To secure the best result
with a drag tbe ground should be damp
enough to plow good. If the clods get dry
they will keep the drag off the ground, so
that it will not shove the fine dirt into the
furrows. When in good oondltion to drag
the ground will stick to the drag so that it
requires to be cleared once in an hour or
two. As a clod crusher a roller issuperior
and runs much easier. In the roller we
have the weight concentrated into a small
space.   Take a drag that is seven feet long
Who has Tried it?
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Can some one that has tried it tell us
through the Farmer if corn fodder can
be ricked so it will keep till last part of
winter. We planted some corn thick
last spring a year ag>, ran it through a
cutting box and fed it with bran with
good results. We cut about six acres this
fall with binder, that was planted thick,
and wished to know if it can be stacked or
ricked like a sheaf of wheat so that it will
not rot. We think when the corn is thick
the glaze does not get thick and hard as
it does on field corn; also there is not so
much ear corn to cause feverishness in the
milk cows. The cows will eat the thick
planted fodder up clean when run through
a cutting box with bran, while oommon
field fodder has such hard joints that the
cows will not eat it all, and the troughs
have to be cleaned out quite often. So
there is more good in the thickly planted
corn for fodder in my opinion. Lets hear
from others through the Indiana
Farmer.      A. E. F., An Old Subscriber.
Clermont.
Importance of Beading* Good Literature.
Among the various vocations of life
there is no class of people who have as
great opportunities for social and intellectual improvement as the farmer and
his family. There are doubtless many
farmers who will controvert the statement
but the assertion is made based on the
personal experience of the writer of more
than twenty years of farm life, and an
equal number of years' observation of
those engaged in other vocations. An
organized system of the labor and affairs
of the farm will afford ample time, facilities and means to acquire an accomplished
social, intellectual and business character
that will entitle the possessor to merit in
any station of life.
Every profession and trade, be it commercial or mechanical, has its periodicals
and books pertaining to its representative
line, and It is the industrious student (he
who is never too old to learn) who best
succeeds and commands respect in his
chosen vocation. These periodicals and
books are but recorded practices, resulting
from investigations, discussions and conclusions, and are given in  exchange for
the experience of others, that good may
of 28 feet on the ground at once,   unaroi- result.
THE LEGITIMATE FARM PAPER
is a like medium of exchange, and will at
all times be just what its readers and contributors choose to make it. Every farmer's home should be well supplied with
good newspapers, magazines, books and
musical instruments. There is nothing
more invigorating and refreshing to the
mind and body at the noon hour, or when
coming in from his fields after the day's
work is done, as perusing the pages of a
good book or paper, or listening to the
soothing strains of music produced by his
accomplished son or daughter, and there
is no better place for meditation upon
what has been read and studied than between the plow handles.
A mere knowledge of "reading, writing
and arithmetic" does not complete an
education, but the cultivation of tbe moral
social and intellectual is required, and no
vocation in life should embrace so great a
range as that of the farmer.
With the present low prices for good
papers, books, periodicals and musical
instruments there is no reasonable excuse
why the farmer's family has not an abundant supply, as good papers that used to
cost $2 50 to $4 per year are now furnished
at prices ranging from one to two dollara,
and books of history, biography and travel
with hundreds of others, that formerly
cost from $5 to ?10, are now furnished at
any first-class book store at prices ranging
from ?2 50 to J5, and cheaper' editions at
lower figures.
Within the last few years the number
of publications has increased enormously,
and the education of all classes is growing
with it. There are a great many classes
who are farming the farmer, and his
greatest safeguard is intelligence. He
should be careful in the
SELECTION OF THE BOOKS AND PAPERS
that enter into his home circle, and while
there are many objectionable ones, I will '
mention but two of them: First, the political paper with its "weakly" column of
agricultural and farmnews, just enough to
persuade the farmer that he does not need
a regular, legitimate farm and home
paper, and whose ultimate object and only
interest is to foist its party politics upon
him and retain his subscription, get his
vote and set him at naught with his
neighbor.*
The other class is one whose origin was
the advertising circular of some manufacturing concern, its financial backing a
syndicate of manufacturers whose only
object is to foist their goods and wares
upon the farmer. It has no editor or editorials, no contributors, but a "manager"
who, with "scissors and paste," pirates
upon the columns of legitimate agricultural journals, appropriates the ideas and
writiDg9of their editors, and calls the
sheet an agricultural and farm paper.
The subscription price is low, ranging
from twenty-five to fity cents and to every
subscriber a premium or present is given
usuaUy of more value than the paper.
The enterprising and intelligent farmer
recognizes the fact that the "best is none
too good," and that life is too short to
sacrifice time by the perusal of the many
worthless publications offered him.
The writer was led to express the above
thoughts by a screed in oneof the so-called
agricultuial papers that "farming didn't
pay: we farmers cannot afford such
things, they are for city folks;" that
"farmers have no time to devote to, or
means to provide for more of the comforts
and pleasures of life." With all such it is
the waste of time. When farm crops and
farm affairs are amply fertilized with
prcpeny cultivated brains there Is always
ample time and means Observer in Western Farmer.
An epidemic of scarlet fever and diphtheria    is raging near    Chesterton,
number of schools have been
several deaths are reported.
closed
A
and.