Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1871-11-29
aosvll'e 3JG'erhh thrqhielr,
WEDNESDAY,. NOVEMBER %, 1871
NaximS for Farmers.

MaXimS for Farmers.
II Horace Greeley had written nothing
but the following maXims, they alone
would mark him ,,-' man of-.varied- and
extensive information and of rare and val
liable powers of observation. These max.
inns are the concentration of wisdom on
the farm, and we hope our readers will cut
them out and preserve them. They should
be posted up in q conspicuous place and
read every day. Success and independence
are sure to come to him who follows them:
/. Only good farming pays. He who
sows or plants without reasonable insu-
rance OF good crops, annually, might bet
ter earn wages of some capable neighbor
than work for so poor a paymaster as he.is
certain TO prove himself. ....r -.
2. The good farmer is proved such by
the steady appreciation of his crops. Any
one may reap an ample harvest from fer
tile virgin soil the good farmer alone
grows good crops at first, and better and
better ever afterward.
3. 1t is easier to maintain the productive
capacity of farm than to restore it. To
exhaust its fecundity, and then attempt its
restoration by buying costly commercial
fertilizers is wasteful and irrational.
4. The good farmer sells mainly such
products as are least exhaustive. Necessi-
ty may constrain him, for the first year or
two, to sell grain, or even hay but he will
i
ton, or wool, or meat, or butter and cheese,
or something else that returns to the soil
nearly all that is taken from it. A bank
account daily drawn upon, while nothing
is deposited to its credit, must soon respond
mo funds" So with q farm similarly
treated.
8. Rotation is at least negative fertilization.
1t may not positively enrich farm it
will at least retard and postpone its i'm
riclr II hn hoo faff flor
wheat, corn after corn, for twenty years,
will need to emigrate before that term is
fulfilled. The same farm cannot support
Tor endure) him longer than that. All our
great wheat growing sections of fifty years
ago are wheat growing no longer; while
England grows larger crops thereof on the
very fields that fed the armies of Saxon
Harold and William the Conqueror. Ro-
tation has preserved these as the lack of it
has ruined those.
5. Wisdom is never dear, provided the
article be genuine. l have known farmers
who toiled constantly from daybreak to
dark yet died poor, because, through igno-
rance, they wrought to disadvantage. If
every farmer would devote two hours of
each day TO reading and reflection, there
would be fewer failures in farming than
there are at present.
I. The best investment farmer can
make for his children is that which sur
rounds their youth with the rational de-
lights of a beauteous, attractive home. The
dwelling may be small and rude, vet few
flowers will enrich and gladden. it while
grass and shade are within reach of the
humblest. Hardly any labor done on a
farm is so profitable as that which makes
the wife and children fond and proud of
their home.
s. A good, practical education, includ-
ing a good trade, is a better outfit for a
youth than grand estate, with the draw
back of an empty mind. Many parents
have shaved and pinched TO leave their
children rich, when half the sum thus
lavished would have profted them far
more had il been devoted to the education
of their minds, the enlargement of their
capacity TO think, observe and work. The
one structure that no neighborhood can af-
ford to do without is the school house.
9. A small library of well selected books
in his home has saved many a youth from
wandering into the baneful ways of the
prodigal son. Where parental strictness
and severity would have bred nothing but
dislike and fixed resolution to abscond at
the first opportunity, good books and
pleasant surroundings have weaned many
youth from his first wild impulse to GO
TO sea or cross the continent, and made
him docile, contented, robedient, happy
lngerer by the parental fireside. In a
family, however rich or poor, no other
good is so cheap or 50 precious as thought-
full, watchfull love. r.!f ...r..... .'-....
10. Most men are born poor, but no man,
who has avergae capacities and tolerable
luck need remain 50. And the farmers
calling, though proffering no sudden leaps,
no ready short cuts to opulence, is the sur
est of all ways from poverty and want to
comfort and independence. Other men
must climb the temperate, frugal, dill
gent, provident farmer may grow into
competency and every accessory to eternal
happiness. Each year of his devotion tO
his homestead may find it more valuable
more attractive than the last, and leaves il
better still.