New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-01-14
WHAT KNOW OF FARMING.
BY HORACE GREELEY.
WILL FARMING PAYi

WILL FARMING PAf
commence my essays with this question: because,
when urge the superior advantages of rural life.
am often met by the objection that Farming do nj
PAY That if true is serious matter. Let us con-
slider:
do not understand it TO be urged that the farmer
who owns a large, fertile estate wefenced, we'll
stocked, with good store of effective implements,
cannot live and thrive by farming. What is meant
is, that he who has little but two brown hands to
depend upon cannot make money, or can make very
little, by farming.
/ think those who urge this point have very
Inadequate conception of the difficulty encountered
by every poor young man in securing good start In
life no matter in what pursuit came to New
York when not quite of age, with good constitution
q fair common school education, good health, good
habits and pretty fair trade-lthat OF printer.
think my outfit for campaign against adverse for
tune was decidedly better than the average: yet ten
long years elapsed before it was settled that could
remain here and make any decided Roadway. Mean
time drank no liquors, used no tobacco, attended
no balls or other expensive entertainments, worked
hard and long whenever could find work to do, lost
less than month altogether by sickness, and did
very little in the way of helping others Iudge that
quite as many did worse than ! as did better; and
that of the young lawyers and doctors who try to
many earn less as earn more than their bare board
during the first ten years of their struggle.
John Jacob Aston near the close of long, dlligent,
prosperous career wherein he amassed a large for
tune is said to have remarked that If he were to be-
Gin life again. and had TO choose between making MS
first thousand dollars with nothing to start on, or
with that thousand making all that he had actually
accumulated, he would deem the latter the easier
task. Depend on it, young men, 1t Is and must be
hard work to earn honestly your first thousand dol
lars The burglar, the forger the blackleg whether
he play with cards, with dice or with stocksl' may
seem to have quick and easy way OF making
thousand dollars; but whoever makes that sum non
estlv with nothing but his own capacities and ener
ges as capital, does very good fyeyears work ana
NAV deem himself fortunate if he finishes 1T so soon
hare known men do better, even at farming. L
recollect one who, with no capital but good wife
and four or five hundred dollars. bought near Boson)
a farm of two hundred mainly rough acres for $500
and paid for out of its products within the next five
years during which he had nearly doubled its value
lost sight of him then; but have not doubt that
if he lived fifteen years longer and had no very bad
luck he was worth the net result of twenty years
effort at least 100000 But this man would rise at
o'clock of Winter morning. harness his span OF
horses and hitch them to his large market-wagon
loaded over night, drive ten miles into Boston, I'M
load and load back again, be home at fair breakfast
time, and hastily swallowing his meal, be fresh as
daisy for his days work. in which no would lead his
hired men, keeping them clear of the least danger Of
falling asleep. Such men are rare, but they still
exist proving scarcely anything impossible TO an in-
domitable will. / would not advise any to work so
numerically; seek only TO enforce the truth that
great achievements are within the reach of whoever
will pay their price.
An energetic farmer bought, some twenty-five
wears ago large grazing farm in Northern Vermont,
consisting of some $50 acres and costing him about
5000 lie 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 annum and
so improve his land by cultivation, fertilizing,
clover &c. that it would amply carry that increase.
Fifteen years later he sold out farm and stock Tor
$4,000 and migrated TO the West. did not under
stand that he was a specially hard worker but only
good manager, who kept his eyes wide OPEN let
nothing 90 to waste, and steadily devoted his ener-
gies and means to the improvement OF his stock and
his fam.
Walking one day over the farm of the late Prof.
Names no showed me a field of rather less than ten
acres and said 81 bought that field for 81 400 year
ago last September There was then light crop of
corn on it. which the seller reserved and took away
under-drained the field that FAN p!owed and sub
soiled it, fortified it literally, and planted it with
cabbage; and. when these matured, sold them for
enough 10 pay for laEl labor and fertilizers alto
grther" The field now worth far more than
when he bought it, and be had cleared it within
fifteen months from the date of It's purchase. con-
slider that a rOod operation Another year, the crop
might have been poor or mi yh have sold much lower,
50 as hardly pay for the Labor hut there are risks
in Of her pursuits IL, well ~ in farming.
4 frnit farmer on tho Hudson above Newburg
showed me- three years since 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 le assured that his sales
exceeded 500 per annum | presume his outlay for
labor including picking, less than $500 per an
mum; bat 1t cost something to make this field what
it then vas Say that lac had spent 900 Per acre in
understanding, enricliing and filling this field, 20
bring it to this condition. including the cost of his
plants and still there must have been clear profit
here of at least $500 per acre.
/ might multiply Illustrations; but let the fore
going suffice. readily admit that shftless farming
do Mt paythat poor crops do MT pay-that 1t is hard
work TO make money by farming without some capi-
ta-tat frost or hail drouth, floods or insects.
may blast the farmers hopes after he has done his
best 10 deserve and achieve success but insist that
as a general proposition, GOOD Farming DOES pay
that few pursuits afford good prospect as full an
assurance of reward for intelligent energetic persist
ent effort as this does.