KinSource - Tale of the Week - Times Not Like They Used To Wuz

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The Sacred Heart Journal, November 9, 1905, p. 1

Times Not Like They Used To Wuz

Somehow farmin aint what it used to be in this country forty years ago. The problen of help is getting to be a massasoger. It don't seem possible to hire help reasonable nowadays that will milk clean and hustle the crops in and out and leave any margin for the farmer. Machinery is doing lots but it can't do all. It's mere a matter of arithmetic how much is left after going wages is paid. It's getting so that a man without a big family is in the soup and President Roosevelt's race suicide idee is ominous for successful farmin'. The ones that is prosperin' nowadays are lots of 'em owners of a big crop of children comin' right up like a pair of stairs. Then young America aint got the patience to make money slowly on a farm with hard knocks and toil same as their fathers and mothers did. They have got the delusive Roberfeller and Moneymaker idea of piling up big fortunes by doin the other fellas and not workin' theirselves and this cuts all sticktoitiveness on the farm out of the question. Why forty years ago when my wife used to bring in eggs and get a caliker dress it was quite an event in the family. We didn't disdain to wear such clothes to meetin' and pioneer parties. But our boys and girls on the farm now are built different. They've go to make a fortune the first year or they quit. Farmer Ben.