Weekly Trinity journal., 1869-10-23
Beecher as q Farmer.
Mark Twain" gets off the following abo

"Mark Twain" gets off the following about
Henry Ward Beecher's manner of farming:
| Mr.. Beecher's farm consists of thirty-six acres,
and is carried on strictly scientific principles
He never puts in any part of his crop without
consulting his books. He plows and digs and
sows according to the best authorites-and the
authorities cost more than the other farming i'm :
plements do. As soon as the library is COM
| pleted, the farm will begin to be profitable in
vestment But book farming has its draw
backs. Upon one occasion, when it seemed
morally certain that the hay ought to be cut, the
| hay book could not be found-and before it was
! found it was too late, and the hay was all
spoiled. Mr.. Beecher raises some of the finest
| wheat in the country, but the unfavorable diff
ference between the cost of producing it and it's
market value after it is produced has interfered
considerably with its success a commercial
enterprise. His special weakness is hogs, how
ever.
He considers hogs the best game farm pro-
duces. He buys the original pig for one dollar
and a-half, and feeds him forty dollars worth of
corn, and then sells him for about uine dollars.
this is the only crop he ever makes any money
on. He loses on The corn, but he makes seven
dollars and half on the hog. He does not
mind this, because he never expects to make
anything on corn, anyway. And any way it
turns out, he has the excitement of raising the
hog anyhow, whether he gets the worth of him
| or not. His strawberries would be comforta-
BILE success if the robins would eat turnips, but
they won't and hence the difficulty.
One of Mr.. Beecher's most harassing difficult
ties in his farming operations comes of the close
resemblance of different sorts of seeds and plants
to each other. Two years ago his far-sighted-
ness warned him that there was going to be
great scarcaity of watermelons, and therefore he
put in crop of twentyseven acres of that fruit
But when they came up they turned out to be
| Al
Sometimes portion of his crop goes into the
ground the most promising sweet potatoes, and
comes out the infernalest carrots-though
never have heard him express it Just in that
way. When he bought his farm he found one
egg in every hens nest on the place. He said
that here was just the reason why so many farm
ers failed-they scattered their forces too much
- concentration was the idea.
SO he gathered those eggs together and put
them under one experienced old hen. That hen
roasted over that contract night and day for
eleven weeks, under the anxious supervision of
Mr.. Beecher himself, but she could not "phase"
those eggs. Why? Because they those
porcelain things which used by ingenious
and fraudulent farmers as 'nest eggs" But
perhaps Mr.. Beecher's most disastrous expert
ence was the tine he tried to raise an immense
crop of dried apples. He planted fifteen hun
dred dollars worth, but one of them
sprouted. He has never been able to under
stand, to this day, what was the matter with
those apples.
Mr.. Beechers farm is not triumph 1t
would be easier on him if he worked it on shares
with some one but he cannot find anybody
who is willing to stand half the expense, and
not many that are able. Still, perseverance in
any cause is bound to succeed. He was very
inferior farmer when he first began, but pro-
longed and unhnchng assault upon his agri-
cultural difficulties has had its effects at last
and he is now fast rising from affluence to pow
erty