Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1872-03-02

Horace Grcelcy's Agricultural Max,
inns.

inns.
The venerable philosopher Of the
Tribune is not much of n farmer,
but is a clear-headed and f~ar-seeiDg
common sense thinker, as the fol-
lowing maxims from one of his ad'
dresses show:
l. Only good farming pays. He
who sows or plants, without reason
able assurance of good cropsannual-
ly, might better earn wages of some
capable neighbor than work for SO
poor a paymaster as he is certain to
prove himself.
2. The good farmer is proved by
the steady appreciation of his crops
Any one may reap an ample harvest
from a fertile virgin soil; the good
farmer alone grows good crops at
first, and better ever and afterward.
3. 1t is far easier to maintain the
productive capacity of farm than
to restore it. To exhaust its fecuu-
dity, and then attempt its restora-
ton by buying costly commercial
fertilizers, is wasteful irrational.
4. The good farmer sells mainly
such products as are least exhaus-
tive. Necessity may constrain him,
for the first year or two, to sell
grain, or even hay; but he will soon
send of his surplus mainly in the
form of cotton, or wool, or meat, or
butter and cheese, or something else
that returns to the soil nearly all
hal is taken from it. A bank ac-
count daily drawn upon, while moth
Ing is deposited to his credit, must
soon respond. "No funds; SO with
a farIn similarly treated.
5. Rotation IS at least negative
fertilization. 1t may not positively
enrich a farm; it will at least retard
or postpone its impoverishment.
He who grows wheat after wheat,
corn after corn, for twenty years,
will need to emigrate before that
term is fulfilled. The same farm
cannot support nor endure him
longer than that. All of our 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 ar
mics Of Saxon, Harold and William
the Conqueror. Rotation has pre-
served these, as the lack oft ruined
those.
6. Wisdom is never dear, provid-
ed the article he genuine. l have
known farmers who toiled constant
ly from daybreak till dark yet, died
poor, because, through ignorance,
they wrought to disadvantage. If
every farmer would devote two hours
of each day to reading and reflection,
there would be fewer failures in
harmingt than there are.
7, The best investment a farmer
can make for his children is that
which surrounds their youth with
the rational delights Of a beauteous
home. The dwelling may be small
and rude, yet afew flowers will en-
bellish, as choice fruit trees will en-
rich and gladden. it; while grass
and shade are within the reach Of the
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, in
a good trade, is a better
outfit Tor a youth than a grand es-
tate with the drawback of an empty
mind. Many parents have shaved
and plnched to leave their children
rich when half the sum thus lavish
ed would have profted them far
more had it been devoted to the
cultivation of their minds, the en-
argement OF their capacity to think,
observe and work. The one struc-
ure hal no neighborhood can afford
do without is the school house,
8. A ANAL library of well select
d books in his home has saved
many a youth from wandering into
he baneful ways of the Prodigal
ION. Where paternal strictness and
eyerity would have bred nothing
'ut dislike ana a fixed resolve to ab-
cond at the first opportunity, good
looks and pleasant surroundings
ave weaned many a youthfrom the
rst wild impulse to 60 to sea or
ross the continent, made him a do
lie, contented, obedient, happy .
ngerer by the parental fire ide. In
family, however rich or poor, no
Their good isso precious as thought T.,
Il, watchful love.
10. Most men are born poor, but O.,
o man who has average capacities
nd tolerable luck need remain so.
nd the farmers calling, though y
rofering no sudden leaps, no ready ,
lort cuts to opulence, is tue sur ,
st of all ways from poverty and ,
ant to comfort ana independence,
.ther men must climb. the temper .
.s, frugal, dilgent, proyident far ,
Ter may grow into competence and =
Tery external accessory TO happi- =
SIS. Each year Of his devotion to c
IS homestead mag ind it more val ,
lie, mcre attractive, than the last, :
ID leave il better still. =