The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-05-26
a Boy Rousht g Farm.

Several years ago, a youth of six
teen years, of good service, and fair
English education, not having profta-
BILE employment at his fathers home
in Kentucky, sought employment
among his enterprising neighbors a
few miles distant; and although wages
were low in those days of gold and
silver currency, he saved from his first
years wages $40. He was then sew
enteen, years old, healthy, lively look
ing, aspiring and ambitious to become
useful, noble, and perhaps great. He
had learned that money loaned at
high rates of interest was oppressive
to the borrower, and reached ON the
Ioaner, and in the falling of prices of
nearly all articles in the commercial
world that men sought justification
for their bankruptcy and delinquency
in the fact that they had paid large
rates of interest. Feeling, therefore,
that liberality, as well as justice, was
necessary to every mans dealing with
his fellow men, he loaned his $40 to
an exemplary, enterprising, and pros
porous trading man in his heighbor-
hood, at the lowest rate of interest
known in business in that State, viz ::
six per cent. per annum. He worked
another year, clothed himself in neat
Kentucky jeans and other neat arti
cles of apparel, and went to a coun-
try school three months of the winter
of that year and learned rudiments
of Latin and something of the higher
branches of mathematics, working for
a prosperous liberal farmer evenings
and mornings to pay the boarding;
and at the end of the second year, or
when he was eighteen years of age,
he had saved 500 more. His charac
ter for integrity and industry began to
be better known in the neighborhood,
and his services were soon sought for.
He worked ON farm and rode as
collector for trading men and the
sheriff of his county and at the end
of his nineteenth year he had saved
S110 more. With the interest accu-
mulated on his other two years wa
ges, he had now $500; was comforta-
bly, clothed, and had good business
education, which he improved from
one winter to another, till he became
a scholar, both literally and scientif-
cally. His influence and usefulness
increasing, he had, at the age of twen-
ty years, $3.50. At twenty-ope he
had accumulated $3.50, and was well
known for his activity of life, as
young man of intelligence, virtue and
usefulness, as well as young man OF
very attractive manners and ways.
He moved to Western State~where
land was cheap, and entered 100 acres
by land warrant, which he purchased
with $3.50 of his money. He made a
good selection of land, in good re-
gion of country; he used a portion OF
the balance of his money in improving
his land, buying little stock, and a
few implements for farming, and Sec
ond year he raised small crop
Having gone to his new neighborhood
with about $400 in money, and used
it cautiously, he by degrees gained
the name of responsible citizen and
a good paymaster, and his influence
rose gradually from his appearance
among his new and scattered neigh
bors. Year after year he raised al
crop, continuing to read the best news
papers, periodicals, and books, which
still further improved his mind until
sheep, cattle, and other stock grew up
in focks around him, more land ad-
joining him being purchased from
time to time, till now he finds himself
when scarcely arrived at the middle of
life, gentleman farmer of wealth,
surrounded by comfort and many lux.
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