New-York tribune., 1867-03-13
ing than by twelve hours, per asy IN your Era

ing than by twelve hours' per dsy In your f;,.s =
year. Yet your freedom from self-oonceit ana Z
presumption will half atone for your Ignorance, y
You have not half 80 much to unlea.p. "a !
lifelong farmer who fancies that nobody en-,
farm better than his grandfather did. You will,
sead the proceedings Of the Farmers' Club and
sn Agricultural weekly or monthly with eager
interest, will follow their suggestions, and some,
times be misled by them; but, in the average,
they will benefit you, and you will profit by
every blundcr you make. BY the fourth year. ,
you will be able to criticise and discrininate 60
that your teachers may make blunders. without
inducing you TO follow them. y
Your chief danger is impatience. If you, or !.
your wife would not get disguised with farm
ing the first year, it is quite unlikely tha.
you ever will. Begin with a distinct Under 4
standing that you will not make money at first
that you will almost certainly be poorer az
tho close of your first years farming than
when you began it. Your land will be in poor
condition. you will have to do twosdays' work
for futurity to every one that tells directly on
the production of this years crop. You viii
suffer by drouth and flood, heat and frost,
hail and insects; and will be led 70 conclude
that farming is hard business, and IFS rewards
very meager and uncertain. But all these ara
passing clouds, to dispel which you have but
to persevere. @ ~ -
Resolve to grow what you need and to con-
sumo your own products SO far as may be. We
do MT object to giving bushel of good pota-
toes or a barrel of tur1ips for a pound Of
middling tea; but half dozen such exchanges
per annum are decidedly preferable to hund-
red. ~
Be sure to average at least five days per
week on your own homestead There ara
farmers who do not mean to be shiftless, and
who can do fair days work when they SET
about it, yet who have so mach business
that takes them off this way and that, that they
do not average three square days work pea
week. Those farmers are heading straight toe
ward the poor-house. Can you wonder thas
they deem farming beggarly pursuit.
DO mt fear that you will overstock the market.
This City, like most American cities, ought to
consume treble the fruit she does, and would
if it were reasonably cheap. Good Grapes Gun
be grown at the cost of Wheat-say five eenis
per pound-yet they retail here at fifteen to
thirty cents per pound. At ten cents, the con-
sumption would probably double annually for
the next four years at least. Peaches of lats
sell here at most exorbtant prices. Berries
save when most plentiful, cost far moro than
they should One hundred Thousand acres well
set in fruit this year would not begin to glut
the markets of our great Atlantic cities. Bear
in mind that each child over seven years old
can help you if you grow fruit. ="
For $1,000, you can buy habitable cottage
and five to twenty acres OF warm, mellow.
tractable soil. A team and cow viii cost yoa
$500 more leaving you balance for imple-
ments, seeds, provisions, &C. And, IL you
practice frugality and live largely on your own
products, that will just do.
If you prefer to raise grain and grow stock
you will naturally go West where land is cheap
and grass abundant. You may there buy t6o
acres of land for $1,000 or less in many civil
lied localities, and viii be apt TO doit, though
it is more than you really need. But we may
take another opportunity to speak Of farming
in the West where success is not more decided
but where failure is more difficult, than In oldef
communities. Meantime, let us sum up our
convictions in a few sentences: ~,
l. Land is cheaper at present in this country
than anything else, and cheaper, all things
considered, here than elsewhere. 1t Is very
cheap at the West, but cheap around this City
and in every old State even in densely peo-
pied Massachusetts,. To one who knows how
to improve and till it, nothing else Is so cheap
among us as arabic soil.
III. Every one who has any available means
should own land. Though it be bnt garden
patch, he will be better husband, better fathert
better citizen, for owning land. He who owna
an acre never need pass an idle day, nor go
cringing and begging for employment If no
one wants to pay him for his labor, ne may
profitably employ it on his own land. True5
land unused, like anything else unused, is rarely
a profitable investment yet nothing else Is sd
solid, SO tangible, and SO certain to increase
steadily in value, as land. And no other man
of moderate means can be SO truly independents
rs he who cultivates his own homestead.
III. If Every man in business, who can spare
1000 up to $4,000 would employ that amount
in buying land-a homestead, If posslbie-and
let it be decided directly to his wife. he would
signally lessen the probability of his dying IN
an aims house and being buried at the expense
of the town. Few men will deem this worth
consideration we do.