what were the complaints of farmers in the late 1800?

People complained. Aside from the usual, bad weather and the price for their goods, the country being on the gold standard effected the price of farms. Banks would issue the mortgage in green backs but insist on it being paid back at the going rate for gold, sometimes as much as an eighty percent mark up from the mortgage.

Among the Americans left out of the prosperity [of the late 1800s in the United States] were the farmers who experienced difficult economic times. An article in the April 28, 1887, edition of the Progressive Farmer magazine accurately summed up the attitude of farmers:

There is something radically wrong in our industrial system. There is a screw loose. The wheels have dropped out of balance. The railroads have never been so prosperous, and yet agriculture languishes. The banks have never done a better or more profitable business, and yet agriculture languishes. Manufacturing enterprises never made more money or were in a more flourishing condition, and yet agriculture languishes. Towns and cities flourish and ‘boom’ and grow and ‘boom,’ and yet agriculture languishes. Salaries and fees were never so temptingly high and desirable, and yet agriculture languishes.

Farmers believed that their economic demise resulted from the low prices which they received for their produce. Statistics validate their belief as the price of agricultural produce did fall drastically during the closing decades of the 19th century. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, from 1870 to 1897, wheat prices fell from $1.06 a bushel to 63¢ a bushel, corn from 43¢ to 30¢ a bushel, and cotton from 15¢ a pound to 6¢ a pound. Most of the time farmers received even less for their produce.

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I hope this is helpful.

See "The Free Soil Movement" - http://www.troynovant.com/McElroy/Essays/Free-Soil...

People didn't complain, they just worked