Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1870-02-02
THE CHRONICLE.
WHAT 1 KNOW OF FARMING.
BY HORACE GREELEY.
Will Farming Pay!

riOr advantages of a rural lie, l. am
often met by the objection that farm.
ing don't pay. That, if true, is seri.
Gus matter. Let us consider.
| do not understand it to be urged
that the farmer who owns a large, fur.
tile estate, well fenced, well stocked,
with good store of effective nipple
ments, can not live and thrive by
farming. What is meant is, that he
who has little but two brown hands to
depend upon can not make money, OF
can make very little, by farming.
/ think those who urge this point
have a very inadequate conception oil
the difficulty encountered by every
poor Young man in securing a good
start in life, no matter in what pur-
suit. 1 came to New York when not
quite of age, with a good constitution,
a fair common school education, good
health, good habits, and a pretty fair
trade-that of printer. L think my
outfit for a campaign against adverse
fortune was decidedly better than the
average; yet ten long years elapsed
before it was settled that l could re-
main here and make any decided head
way. Meantime, 1 drank no liquors,
used no tobacco, attended no balls or
othereXpensiveen entertainments, work
ed hard and long whenever l could
find work to do, lost less than a month
altogether by sickness, and did very
little in the way of helping others. l
judge that quite a many did worse
than l as did better and that of the
young lawyers and doctors who try to
establish themselves in their profess
sions, quite as many earn less as earn
more their bare board during the first
ten years of their struggle.
John Jacob Astor, near the close of
a long, diligent, prosperous career,
wherein he amassed a large fortune,
is said to have remarked that, if he
were to begin life again, and had to
chose between making his first thou
sand dollars, with nothing to start on,
or with that thousand dollars making
all that he had actually accumulated,
he would deem the latter the easier
task. Depend on it, young men, it is
and must be hard work to earn honest
ly your first thousand dollars. The
burglar, the forger, the blackleg
(wether he play with cards, with dice,
Or with stocks) may seem to have a
quick and easy way Ofmaking a thou
sand dollars; but whoever makes that
sum honestly, with nothing but his
own capacities and energies as capital,
does a very good five years work, and
may deem himselffortunate if he fin
ishes it so soon.
/ have known men do better, even
at farming. l recollect one who with
no capital but a good wife and four or
five hundred dollars, bought NEAR
Boston, a farm OF two hundred main
~ rough acres for $500, and paid for
it out of its products within the next
five years, during which he had nearly
doubled its Value. L lost sight of him
then; but 1 have not a doubt that, if
he lives fifteen years longer and had
no very bad luck, he was worth, as
the net result of twenty years effort,
at least one hundred thousand dollars.
But this man would rise at 4 o'clock
of a winter morning, harness his span
of horses and hitch them to his large
market-wagOn (loaded over night,
drive ten miles into Boston, unload
and load back again, be home at fair
breakfast-time, and, hastily swallow
ing his meal, be flesh as a daisy for his
days work, in which he would lead
his hired men, keeping them clear of
falling asleep. Such men are rare,
but they still exist, proving scarcely
anything impossible to an indOmitable
will. l would not advise any to work
so numerically, (; l seek only to en-
force the truth that great achievements
are within the reach of whoever will
pay their price.
An energetic farmer bought, some
twenty-five years ago, a large grazing
farm in Northern Vermont, consist
ing of some $50 acres, and costing him
about So 5000. He had a small stock of
cattle, which was all his land would
carry; but he resolved to increase that
stock by at least ten per cent. per an
mum, and to so improve his land, by
cultivation, ~furtiliZing, clover &c,
that it would amply carry that in
a Fifteen years later, he sold
out farm and stock for S45, 900, and
migrated to the West. 1 did not I'M
derstand that he was a specially hard
worker, but only a good manager,
who kept his eye wide open, let moth
ing go to waste, and steadily devoted
his energies and means to the inn
proVement of his stock and his farm.
Walking one day yer the farm of
the late Professor Mapes, he showed
me a field of rather less than ten acres,
and said: II bought that field for
twenty-fOur hundred dollars a year
ago last September. There was then
a light crop of corn on it, which the
seller reserved and took away. l un-
derdrained the field that fall, plowed
and SUBSIDIZED it, fortified it literally,
and planted it with cabbage; and
when these matured, I sold them for
enough to pay for land, LABOR and fer
tilizers altogether" The field was
now worth far more than when he
bought it, and he had cleared it With
in fifteen months from the date of its
purchase I consided that a good OPP
Grafton. Another year the crop
might have been poor, or might have
sold much lower, so as hardly to pay
for the labor; but there are risks in
other pursuits, as well as in farming.
A fruit farmer on the Hudson above
Newburg, showed me, three years
since, q field of eight or ten acres
which he had nicely set with grapes,
in rows ten feet apart, with beds of
strawberries between the rows, from
which he assured me that his sales eX-
ceeded seven hundred dollars per n
mum. 1 presume his outlay for labor,
including packing, was less than
three hundred dollars per annum but
it cost something to make this field
what it then a Say that he had
spent one thousand dollars per acre in
understanding, enriching and tilling
this field, to bring it to this condition,
including the cost of his plants, and
still there must have been a clearprOf-
it here of at least three hundred dol
lars per acra.
might multiply illustrations, but
let the foregoing suffice. / readily
admit that shiftless farming don't pay
poor crops don't pay-that it is
hard work to make money by farm
ing without some capital-that frost,
or hail, or drought, or floods, or insects,
may blast the farmers hopes, after he
has done his best to deserve and
achieve success; but 1 insist that, asa
general proposition, GOOD Farming
DOES p0y-that few pursuits affjrd as
good a prospect, as full an assurance,
of reward for intelligent, energetic,