Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1869-06-23
AgrienIfnrs ITnatfrnetire.

A writer in the Cincinnati Gazette
says :-"Farming is not popular with
| farmers. While every other artiZan
is preparing his sons to take charge of
/ his business, the farmer is looking to
another sphere for his boys, and con-
/ graduates himself if he succeeds in
| transplanting them from the soil
which made him rich and happy. And
if, perchance, an exceptional farmer
| does make an effort to keep his son on
the farm, it is allin vain, for the young
men have no idea of digging their
living out of the dirt, as their father
/ did. The fruits of Eden have paled
on their tastes, and they long for the
/ forbidden fruit of the world. AS all
young orators take Webster and Clay
| for their models, and indulge at least
some hope of an approximation to the
forensic skill of those two inimitable
men, so do our young seekers after
fortune set their hearts on the busi-
ness at which they have seen men
grow rich the faster, and take for their
model the millionaire, whose career
is only possible to one in ten thOus-
and. As a rule, the higher the possi-
bility of rising in any profession, the
greater the risk of falling in it. Safety
lies in mediocrity. But mediOcrity is
the very word the American youth
despises most.
Certain it is that men do not usu-
ally grow rich at farming as fast as
some men do at certain other kinds of
business. Few farmers that are not
utterly shiftless fail to make a decent
living, and to enjoy all the substantial
comforts of life. As no fact in pOliti-
cal economy is better authenticated
than that four-fifths of mankind do
fail to acquire great wealth, it would
seem that any occupation that would
at least secure a decent living, and all
the substantial comforts of life to the
greatest number, would naturally be
popular with the masses. But the fact
that farming is not popular with the
masses proves that this is not the case.
Philosophers have tried hard to talk
attractiveness into the soil, and phi
lanthrOpists have tried in vain to per-
suade the half-starved hangers-on in
the crowded city to get themselves
homes in the country. The current
to-day is decidedly eityward, nOtwith-
standing all the efforts that have been
made to change it. The root of the
evil has seemingly been untouched
The special pleading for the country
amounts to nothing. The evil is a
general one. Luxury and eXtrava-
gance are incompatible with mediocre
business. The farmer runs his farm
with a view to securing artificial luXu-
ries. His eyes are fixed upon the same
goal that daZZles the city merchant
The beauties of Nature 90 for naught
to him. His farm must be the means
of getting him wealth, else it is dull
and meaningless 10 his sight. Wheat
at 81 per bushel, and corn at 80 cents,
will pay the farmer well for his work,
and fair interest on the money in
vested in his land; but those prices
will not make the owner of one humid
red and fifty acres rich in one, two, or
three years. Potatoes at 80 cents per
bushel will pay ten per cent. interest
on land worth $3.50 per acre, but that
will not make the farmer rich in one,
two, or three years, even if he has his
own farm of one hundred acres plant /
ed in potatoes. So with all the pro-
ducts of the farm. One year with
another, any crop that is properly put
in and cultivated, will pay fair in
terest on the money invested and /
reasonable wages for the labor Of culU- /
waiting it. But this is not satisfactory, /
and the great question is, how shall .
agriculture be made more attractive ]
TO the young men of this cOuntTy?n