Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1864-05-21
Money Making Farmers---Sketehes of New
England Rural Life.

Where are the men, then, who have grub
he'd out of the reluctant eastern soil their
stockings legs of specie and their funds at the
bankg They are not wholly myths there are
such Find me a man, who, by aptitude at
bargaining (let US not call it jOckeyism) can
reduce the labor estimates in the foregoing
accounts by a third; who, by kindred qusli-
ty, can add to the amount of sales third;
who can. by dint of early rising and perpet-
nal presence, stretch the ten-hour system into
twelve or fourteen; who by a conquest of
all finer appetites, can reduce the home con-
sumption to a third of the figure named in my
estimates, and you have the type of one
class. A union of tremendous energy and
shrewdness; keenly alive to the phases of the
market; an ally of all the hucksters; sharp
to pounce upon some poor devil of an emf
grant, before he has learned the current rate
of wages; ; gifted with quick scent of Offal,
which may be had for the carriage, and which
goes to pig food or the fermentation of CON-
post.
| think have limited character which
those will recognize who know the neighbor-
hood of large New England towns; prompt
talker-nOt bashful-full of Ife-selectman,
perhaps; great in corner groceries, store
handed" interchangeable, trenchant, with an
eve always to the windward.
If we're to sketch another type of New
cessful-it would be a sharp-nOsed man, thin,
wiry, with a blueness about the complexion
that has come from unlimited buffetings with
nOrth-Westers; one who has been moderator"
at town meetings in his day, and upon school
committees over and over one who has
sharpened his tongue by occasional talk at
society" meeting-to say nothing of dOmes-
tics practice.
l think of him as living in a twO-story,
white house, with green blinds (abutting close
" upon the rOad,) and whose front rooms he
knows only by halfyearly summatiOns to
minister's tea drinking, or the severer ordeal
of the sewing circle. His hands are stiff and
bony all the eallosities of ak and scythe and
hoe, have blended into one hOrney texture
the whole of the epidermis; yet his eye has
keen, shrewd flash in il, from the depths of
sixty years and under the hair of his temple,
you may see a remaining bit OF bleached skin,
which shows that he VASTLY odd years ago
"a fair complexiOned boy.
He has grown gray upon his struggling farm
of one or two hundred acres yet it is doubt
full if the farm will produce more now than
on the day he entered into possession. Some
walls have been renewed and the old ones are
tOttering. Broken barways have been re-
placed by new ones; and the wood pile has
its stock year after year; and every tenth
year, when oil Is down, the house has its coat
of paint-himseH being mixer and painter
save under the caves, for which ladder work
he employs a country jOurneyman, who takes
halfpay in pork and grain. When 'help" is
low he clears some outstanding rye field and
commences a new bit of wall-a disunited
link, which possibly his heirs may complete.
Every year six ten or twelve hogs grow into
plethoric proportions; every year they are
butchered, under a great excitement of hot
water, lard-tryings, unctiOus fatty smells
sausage -stufing, and sales TO the "packer" of
the town. Every year he tells their weight
to his neighbOrs, between services at meet
ing, with his forefnger in the pocket of his
black waist-cOat and the same sly twinkle in
his eye.
Every spring he has his " veals four, six,
ten, as the case may be and every spring he
higgles in much the same way with the town
butcher, in regard to age, to price, and to fat
ness Every summer | see him in black hat
black dress coat, on his wagon box, with but
ter frkins behind, 1.-THE covers closed on lin
en- towels by the mistress at hOme,) driving
10 the market. And if | trot behind him on
his return, l see that his exchange has pro-
cured him two-gallon jug of mOlasses, a saw
Ory bundle of dried Goldfish, a mostly paper
parcel of brown sugar, tight little bag of
timothy seed. and new hoe, or dung fork.
But he never allows his spendings to take up
goes home a mOdieum, which grows by slow
and gradual accretiOn into notes Secured by
mOrtgage) of some unthrifty neighbOr, or an
entry upon the columns of his book at the
Savings.
There is no amateur Of them all, who re-
eeive as much as into a third, for what ne
may have to SELL nor any one who spends as
little, by twO-thirds, for what he may have to
buy. 1t is incredible what such man will
save in the way of barter; and equally in
credible how rarely he finds occasion TO pay
out money at all Yet he is Obseryant of
proprieties; his pew rent at the meeting
house and tax bills are punctually honOred
If bargain with him he loves elaboration;
he has an opinion, but it only appears after
long travail and comparison of Yiews--in the
course of which he has whitfield stout billet
of wood to a very fine point. If address
him in the field, he stops, leans on his hoe,
and is willing to lavish upon me the only val
liable commodity for which he makes no
charge, to wit, his time.
Such man repairs his barn promptly,
when the sills are giving way; he does not
hesitate at the purchase of likely pair of
cattle " at bargain he viii buy an occasion
al bag of guanO upon proof in his turnips
patch, or on his winter rye; but if a sub-sOil
pillow is recommended, he gives a sly twinkle
to that grey eye of his and a complimentary
allusion TO the old Eagle No A." which set.
ties the business.
Such men are, in their way, mOney-makers;
but rather by dint of not spending than by
large profits. These back-country gentlemen
have their families-educated thanks to our
shoOl SYSTEM; boys, lank at the first, in
short-armed coats, and with pinch of the
vowel sounds in their speech, but they do not
iinger around such homestead they come
to the keeping of hotels, or of Wood-yards on
the Mississippi; many are written down in
the dead-books of the war.
Our EOney-making farmer has his daugh-
ter too, with her ChFysanthemums and striped
grass at the door, and her pink monster Of a
Hydrangea. She has her Ladys Book, and
her Ledger, and on such literary food grows
apace but such reading does not instill a
healthy admiration for the dairy or butter
making; rosy cheeks and incarniadned arms do
not belong to the heroines of her dreams. /
do not think she ever heard of Kit Marlow's
song: