The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-05-07
agriculture Unattractive.

A writer in the Cincinnati Gazette
says:
Farming is not popular with farmers.
While every other artisan is preparing
his sons to take charge of his business,
| the farmer is looking to another sphere
for his boys, and congratulates himself
If he succeeds in transplantiDg them
| from the soil which made him rich and
| happy. And If perchance an excep-
tional farmer does make an effort to
keep his sons on the farm, it is all in
vain, for the young men have no idea
OF digging their living out of the dirt,
as their father did. The fruits of Eden
haYe palled 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 mimi
table men, so do our young seekers after
fortunes set their hearts on the business
at which they have seen men grow
rich the fastest, and take for their model
the millionaire, whose career is only
possible to one in ten thousand. AS
rule, the higher the possibility OF rising
in any business or profession, the great
er the risk of failing in it. Safety lies
in mediocrity. But mediocrity is the
very word the American youth despises
most.
Certain it is that men do not usually
grow rich at farming as fast as some
men do at certain other kinds of busi-
ness. Few farmers that are not utterly
shiftless fail to make decent living,
and to enjoy all the substantial COM
forts of life. AS no fact in political
economy is better authenticated than
that four 6fths of mankind do fail to
acquire great wealth, 1t would seem
that any occupation which would at
of a 6nRnnf al
substantial comforts OF life to the great
est 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. Phi
losophers have tried hard to talk attrac-
tiveness into the soil, and philanthro-
plsts have tried In vain 10 persuade the
half-stRrved hangers-on in the crowded
city to get themselves homes in the
country! The current to-day is decid-
edly cityWard, Notwithstanding all the
efforts that have been made to change
1t. The root of the evil has seemingly
been untouched. The special pleading
for the country amounts to nothing.
The evil is general one. Luxury and
extravaganza are Incompatible with
mediocre business, The former runs
his farm with a view to securing artiii-
cial luXuries. His eyes are fixed upon
the same goal that daZzles the city
1Qo DohuLleS VI uhLuIo BO
for naught to him. His farm must be
the means of getting him wealth, else it
is dull and meaningless to his sight.
Wheat at 81 per bushel and corn at 90
cents Will pay the farmer we'll for his
work, and a fair interest on the money
invested in his land; but those prices
will not make the owner of hundred
and fifty acres rich in one, two, or three |
years. Potatoes at so cents per bushel
will pay 10 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 il he has his whole |
farm of 100 acres planted in potatoes. |
So with all the products of the farms. |
One year with another, any crop that is |
put in and we'll cultivated, |
will pay fair interest on the money |
invested and reasonable wages for tue |
labor of cultivating it. But that is not |
and the great question is
how shall agriculture be maue more at
tractive to the young men of this coun-