New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-01-22
WHAT l KNOW OF FARMING.
by HORACE GREELEY.
WHERE TO FARM.

ward the East Experience has taught me that the
advantages of every section are counterbalanced 10y
disadvantages, and that, where any crop Is easily
produced there 1t sells low, and sometimes cannot
be- sold at all shall live and die right here; but,
were l to remove again, it would not be toward the
Vest
This is Int one side Of a TRUTH and l give 1T for
,yhotever if may be worth Had my father plunged
;,to the primitive forest in his twenty-ffh rather
than his forthwith year, lie would doubtless have
become more reconciled to pioneer life than he ever
did / would advise no one over forty years OF age
70 undertake. with scanty means, to dig farm out
If the dense forest where great trees must be cut
down and cut up rolled into logheaps and burned TO
ashes where they grew. Where half the timber can
be sold for enough to pay the cost of cutting the
case is difc1ent but know right well that digging
farm out of the high woods is, to any but man OF
wealth. slow, hard task Making one out OF naked
prairie five to ten miles from timber, is less DIM
,nlt but not much He who can locate where he has
good timber on one side and rich prairie on the
other is fortunate and may hope, if his health be
spared, to surround himself with every needed com
fort within ten years. Still, the pioneers life is
rugged one especially for women and children; ana
should advise any man who is worth $1,000 and has
a family. 10 buy out an improvement (which, IN
most cases badly needs improving on the outsklrt
of civilization rather than plunge into the painless
forest or push out upon the unbroken pralrle'
' reioice that our Public Lands are free
70 actual settlers; / b.lieve that many are
thereby enabled to make for themselves homes
who otherwise would have nothing to leave
,heir children; yet much prefer a location WITHIN
the boundaries of civilization to one clearly beyond
them. There is class of drinking, hunting, frolck
ing rarely working, frontiersmen, who seem to have
been created on purpose TO erect log cabins andbreak
of pla Of
regularly come in to buy them out and start them
along after few years. should here prefer TO fol
low rather than lead If Cooperation shall ever be
successfulv applied to the settlement Of wild lands,
trust it may be otherwise.
He who has a farm already and is content with it,
las 10 reason to ask, "Whither shall go z and he
may rest assured that thoroughly good farming will
nav as well in New-England in Kansas or in Min
nesota. advise no man who has good farm any
where and is able to keep it, TO sell and migrate
- know men who make money by growing food within
twenty miles of this City quite fast as they could
in the West If you have money TO buy and work it,
and know how to make the most of il, believe you
may find land really cheap, all things considered,
in Vermont as in Wisconsin or Arkansas
And vet believe in migation-believe that there
are thousands in the Eastern and Middle States who
would improve their circumstances and prospects by
migrating to the CHEAPER lands and broader opportu-
mites of the West and South. For in the first place,
most men are by migration rendered more energetic
aud aspiring: thrown among strangers, they 1eel
the necessity of exerion as they felt it before
Needing almost everything, and obliged TO rely
wholly on themselves, they work in their new homes
as they never did in their old and the consequences
are soon visible all round them.
"A stern chase is .long chase say the sailors;
and he who buys farm mainly on credit, intending
y mt Of
sickness. bad seasons, hail. frost, drouth tonadoes
foods &C. &C. deranging his calculations and i'm
pedng his progress until he is often impeed TO give
mn In despair There are men who can surmOunt
every obstacle and defy discouragement-these
need 10 advice; but there are thousands
who having little means and large families, can
grow into a good farm more easily and far more
surely than they can pay for il and these may wisely
seek homes where population is yet sparse and land
is consequently cheap. Doubtless some migrate
who might better have fOrbOrne; yet the instinct
which draws our toward sunset Is nevertheless
a trne one. The East will not be depopulated; but
the West will grow rapidly in the course OF the
next twenty years than in the past. The Rail
roads which have brought Kansas and Minnesota
within three days and California within week OF
us. have rendered this inevitable.
But the South also invites immigration as she
never did till now. Her lands are still very cheap;
she is better tmbered, in the average, than the
West her climate invites; her unopened mines and
unused waterpower call loudly for enterprise labor
and skill 1t is absurd to insist that her soil is ex
bausted when not one-third Of it has ever yet been
plowed. | do not advise solitary migration to
the South because she needs schools roads,
bridges, mills &C., &c. which the solitary
immigrant can neither provide well do without /;
and have no assurance that he If obliged TO Work
out for present bread would find those ready TO en-
ploy and willing to pay him; but let hundred
Northern farmers and mechanics worth SlOOO 10
5000 each combine to select Through chosen agents.
and buy ten or twenty thousand acres in some
Southern State embracing hill and vale, timber,
and tillage water-power and minerals and divide 1t
eouitaby among themselves after laying it out with
roads, park, a village-plat, sites for churches
schools, &c, and am confident that they can thus
make pleasant homes more eheapy and speedily
there than almost anywhere else
Good farming land, improved or unimproved. is
this day cheaper in the United States, all things con-
sidered, than in any other country-cheaper than it
can long remain. SO many are intent on short cuts
10 riches that the soil generally neglected and may
be bought amazingly cheap in parts of Connecticut
as well as in Iowa or Nebraska. When was last in
Illinois / rode for some hours beside q gray-coated
farmer of some sixty years, who told me this: "
came here thirty years ago. and took up, at $l3 per
acre, good tract Of land, mainly in timber
now selling off the timber at 500 per acre,
reserviDg the land" That seems to me good opera
tion-not so quick as q corner in the stock-market
but far safer And, while ! would advise no
man TO incur debt, say most earnestly to all who
have means, Look out the place where You would
prefer TO live and die; take time 70 suit yourself
thoroughly; choose it with reference to your means