I would like to see one of our solvent, well-managed Railroads advertise that it would henceforth buy at any of its stations all the farmers' produce that might be offered, and pay the highest prices that the state of the markets would justify. Let its agents purchase whatever came along—a basket of eggs, a coop of chickens, a barrel of apples, a sack of beans, a pail of currants—anything that could be sold in the city to which it runs, and which would conduce to human sustenance or comfort. Its object should be Freight—the rapid and vast increase of its transportations, not extra profit on the articles transported. But let its agents be ready to buy at fair prices whatever was offered, paying cash down, and pushing everything purchased directly into market, so as to have the money back to buy more with directly. The Railroad Company, thus owning nearly everything edible it brought into market, would buy and sell at uniform prices, and not bid against itself, as a crowd of hucksters and middlemen will often do. I am confident that a Railroad that would inaugurate this system on a right basis, saying to every farmer living near it, "Grow whatever your soil is best adapted to, and bring it to our station: there, you shall have cash down for it, at the highest price we can afford to give," would rapidly double and quadruple its freights, and would thus build up a business which has no parallel under the present system.
It is urged, in opposition to this proposal, that a Railroad so managed would monopolize markets, and deal on its own terms with the producer and consumer. If there were but one railroad entering a great city, and no other mode of reaching it, this objection would be plausible, but not in the actual case. Whoever chose would be at liberty to start an opposition, and to use the railroad or dispense with it as he found advisable.
LI.
WINTER WORK.
THE dearth of employment in Winter for farm laborers is a great and growing evil. Thousands, being dismissed from work on the farms in November, drift away to some city, under a vague, mistaken impression that there must be work at some rate where so much is being done and so many require service, and squander their means and damage their morals in fruitless quest of what is not there to be had. When Spring at length arrives, they sneak back to the rural districts, ragged, penniless, debauched, often diseased, and every way deteriorated, by their Winter plunge. For their sakes not only, but for the sakes also of those who will employ and those who must work with them hereafter, this drifting to the cities should be stopped.
In its present magnitude, it is a very modern evil. Far within my recollection, there was timber to cut and haul to the saw-mill, wood to cut, draw, and prepare for the year's fuel, with forest-land to be cleared and fitted for future cultivation, even in New-England. Those who chose to work with ax or team were seldom idle in Winter. Now, there is little timber to cut, little land to clear, and coal is rapidly supplanting wood as fuel. So a larger and larger number of farm laborers is annually turned off when the ground freezes to live as they may for the next three or four months.
I recognize the right of the farmer, who has given twelve or more hours per day to the tillage of his acres and the saving of his crops throughout the genial months, to take the world more easily in Winter. He should now have leisure to return visits, to post and balance his books, and to improve his mind by study and reflection. Having worked hard when he must, he ought to rest and recuperate when he can. But he gravely errs who supposes that, the ground being frozen, there is no longer work to be done on the farm until the ground is fit to plow again. On the contrary, he who realizes that the farmer is a manufacturer of food and fibrous substances from raw materials of far inferior value must see that, so soon as one harvest has been secured, the cultivator should devote his attention to the collection and utilization of the elements wherefrom a larger crop may be obtained from the same acres next season.
And first as to Muck. No one who has not valued and sought it is likely to know how generally abundant and accessible this material is. I have found it in inexhaustible supply on the land of a pretty good cultivator who, after working a fair farm ten years, sold it because (as he supposed) it was destitute of this basis of extensive fertilization. "Seek, and ye shall find," implies that those who do not seek will rarely find; and such is the fact. Where rock abounds, Muck is rarely wanting. It covers many thousand acres of Jersey sands, where rock is unknown; but show me a region ridged or ribbed with rock, and I shall confidently expect to find Muck on it, though none has been known or supposed to exist there. And he who either has or can buy a bed of Muck within half a mile of his barn, his sty, his hen-house, may dig and draw from it all Winter with a moral certainty that it will generously reward his outlay. Begin as soon after haying as you can spare the time, and cut an outlet so deep that you may thereafter work dryshod; thenceforth, dig and pile on the nearest accessible spot of dry ground, to be drawn away to the barn-yard and out-houses as opportunity presents itself. But, even though you have done nothing till the ground freezes, do not say it is now too late, but set to work. You can often team in Winter where you could not at any other season; and, in digging Muck from a swamp or bog well frozen over, you are not apt to be troubled with water. Draw all you can; but dig much more; for no money at lawful interest pays so well as Muck left to dry and cure for months before you draw it. I think I do not over-estimate the average value of a cubic yard of Muck, well cured and mixed with warmer fertilizers before application to the soil, at one dollar; and I think there are few farmers in the Old Thirteen States who cannot obtain it for less than that.