For the American farmer is generally at the mercy of the trader. The trader is as good as the average merchant, and is practically a merchant in all respects. He is generally the keeper of a general store at which the farmer during the year purchases everything which he may need for his family on an open account; with the understanding that when his crops are made they shall be turned over to the merchant, and a general balance struck. When there is a good year the result may be in favor of the farmer, but good years are not the rule in the United States, even though the country is, as is said, the garden of the world. People who work and strain their energies to the uttermost require more in the way of ordinary creature comforts than those whose lives are more regular, and, though the farmer may discuss prices with great earnestness with the local merchant, the end is practically the same: he purchases whatever his family wants, so long as he can have it “charged.” He must purchase at the price stipulated by the merchant, for it is utterly impossible for him to look anywhere else for what he may need.
Some newspapers have made sensational complaints of the system of peonage to which some southern blacks or freedmen have been reduced by the storekeepers of plantations since slavery days, but there is no practical difference between their condition and that of the farmers the country over. “The borrower is servant to the lender,” and the man who has no money with which to purchase must submit to the exactions of whoever is willing to extend credit to him. Farmers’ notes are in the market in almost every county of the United States, and frequently those of which sell at the lowest prices are drawn by men of whose honesty of purpose and intention to pay no one has the slightest doubt. The only reason is that the farmer’s absolute necessities have been in excess of the cash value of his farm products.
It is customary to speak of the farmer’s life as being the happiest and the safest occupation in the world. Nearly every one knows of some one successful farmer, and bases his judgment upon his knowledge of that solitary individual. But facts are stubborn things, and they have been proved by figures in the United States in a manner that should make those who are envious of the farmer think again.