The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-03-28
Our AgrIcuIturaI Column.

| eA4S SPAAA6 PAoA1AAb may Oe lnleEAeIeu
with somewhat. The country needs
immense crops of all kinds this year
to set financial matters firmly on their
feet and brighten up the prospects of
the future. Farmers have been short
of breadstuffs for their own consump-
tion the last year or two in consequence
OF the mania for raising stock and wool,
and letting somebody else do the hard
work of agricultural life. That sort of
thing has literally played itself out and
has worked its own cure. Wool is not
the crop it was during the war, when the
Government was the great consumer
of wool clothing for the soldiers, and
cotton has again come In vogue at
greatly reduced prices. Both the wool
and cotton crops this year will be large,
and everybody expects to buy their
clothing much cheaper. 1t is not like
ly, therefore, that sheep will be so much
the rage hereafter.
| All countries that quit raising the
staples OF life and betake themselves to
fancy crops, or to those that ignore the
stomach of mankind, invariably go
behind-hand. Spain and other coun-
tries of Europe, are examples of this
kind. We get our foreign woods from
some of the poorest paris of the Old
World and South America. So that
after all, the hope and prop of Ameri-
can prosperity is in feeding mankind.
Our sub-strata are our wheat, corn,
beef and bacon; upon these broad foun-
dations we can build with wool, cotton,
hemp, tobacco, and everything else be-
longing to mans necessities or Iuxu-
ries.
Round about Wheeling, say for fifty
miles, there is very little surplus food
at this slime, either for man or beast.
Our flour all comes from other sections,
and great deal of our bacon. Even po-
tatoes, beans and minor products are
bronEht to this market from the West.
1t is curious sight to see farmers
coming to the city with load of hay or
with a few bushels of oats, or, worse
still, with small lot of poultry and
butter, and investing it all in barrel
of flour, barrel of potatoes, and per-
haps few groceries. When we see it
we cannot help recalling those lines in
Goldsmith's Deserted Village" that
read
"That wealth is btit name,
| Which leaves our product still the same.
1t takes more than oil or precious
metals in a country to make it perma-
nently rich or prosperous. 1t may be
counted questionable, for instance,
whether the discovery of oil in West
Virginia has been to its real advantage.
Large tracts of land have been bought
at high prices by Eastern capitalists,
and are now held in useless idleness by
them. Those who sold out have either
invested the money in Government Sc
curities, and are now non-producers.
or else have left our borders and gone
to the West, where lands are cheap and
productive. The curse of the old Vir-
ginia regime was the immense amount
of idle lands held by companies and in
dividuals, and it is the curse of any
country. Small farms, well titled arc
| the surest sources of wealth, health and
happiness to communities not less
than to individuals. We hope to live
to see the day in West Virginia when
every tilIer of the soil will own his fair
share of it, and when the fields will
TEEN with the cereals to which they are
best adapted. Taxeswill not then oppress
one section of the State in unequal pro-
po=tion as now.
And speaking of this idea calls up
communication, and answer thereto,
that appeared a few days ago in the
New York Tribune. A young man
wrote a letter to the editors of that pa
per, in regard to the desirability of
agricultural life, and the profits of 1t as
an occupation. They replied in long
article, showing its advantages and
disadvantages, its sencouragements and
discouragements, the sum of the whole
matter, being that on the
general average, it was life affording
more peace of mind, less temptations,
better health, and surer wealth in the
long run, than any other occupation in
the world. They who live in and
around large cities and towns, pre-
ferring their transient and uncertain
gains for the sake of their excitements,
are often not aware of how much of
solid enjoyment they sacrifice in so do
ing. Therefore, says the Tribune:
every one who has any available
means should own land. Though it
be but garden patch, he will be a bet
ter husband, better father, better citi-
zen, for owning land. He who owns
an acre never need pass an idle day,
nor go cringing and begging for en-
ployment- If no one wants to pay him
for his labor, he may profitably employ
| it on his own land True, land unused,
| like anything else unused, is rarely q
profitable investment; yet nothing else
is so solid, so tangible and so certain to
increase in value, as land. And no
other man of moderate means can be so
truly independent as he who cultiyates
his own homestead"
One reason why, says the same paper,
that SO many get tired of farming and
think it poor and unremunerative
business is that they give so little in
| telligent attention toit. An indispensa-
BILE prerequisite is intelligent patience.
Begin, says the editor, with distinct
understanding that you will not make
money at first, nor all the time, but how
ever with the certain expectation that
industry and time will eventually
make you independent, certainty that
no other class of men can SO well afford
to entertain:
"Be sure to average at least five days
/ per week on your own Homestead.
There are farmers who do not mean TO