The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-02-23
AGRICULTURAL.
Horace Greeley's Agricultural Max

Horace Gree1ey'D A8r1eultufal Max
hl4i IL. a .E.ra.a
The venerable philosopher of the
Tribune is not much of q farmer,
but is q clear-headed and far-seeing
common sense thinker, as the fol-
lowing maxims from one of his ad-
dresses show:
1. Only good farming pays. He
who sows or plants, without reason
able assurance of good crops annual
ly. might better earn wages of some
capable neighbor than work for SO
poor q 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. It is far easier to maintain the
productive capacity of a farm than
to restore it. To exhaust its fecun-
dity, and then attempt its restora-
ton by buying costly commercial
fertilizers, is waateful irrational
4. The good farmer sells mainly
such products as are least e1haus-
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 coil nearly all
that is taken from it. A bank &C
count daily drawn npon, while moth
ing is deposited to his credit, must
soon respond. "No funds so with
a farm eimilarly treated.
5. Rotation il at least negative
fertilization. It may not positively
enrich 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-growine no longer; while
England grows larger crops thereof
on the very fields that fed the ar
mics of Saxon, Harold and William
the Oonqueror: Rotation has pre-
served these, as the lack oft ruined
those.
6. Wisdom is never dear, provid-
ed the article be genuine. I have
known farmers who toiled constant
ly from daybreak till dark yet, died
poor, because, through ignorance,
they wrought to disadvantage. II
every farmer would devote two hours
of each day to reading and reflection,
there would be fewer failures in
farming than there are.
z. The best investment a farme Ell
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 a few flowers will en-
bellish, as choice fruit trees will en-
rich and gladden. it; while grass
and shade are within the 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.
8. A good practical education, in
GLIDING q 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 pinched to leave their chi dr. n
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-
largement of their capacity to think,
observe and work. The one struc-
ture that no neighborhood can afford
ty do without is the school house.
8. A ANAL library of we'll select
ed books in his home has saved
many a youth from wandering into
the baneful ways of the Prodigal
Son. Where paternal strictness and
severity would have bred nothing
but dislike and q fixed resolve to alb
scond at the first opportunity, good
books and pleasant surroundings
have weaned many youth from the
first wild impulse to 60 to sea OF
cross the continent, made him do
Gle, contented, obedient, happy
ingerer by the parental freside. In
q family, however rich or poor, no
other good is so precious as thought
fol, watchful love.
10. Most men are born poor, but
no man who has average capacities
and tolerable luck need remain SO.
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 temper
ate, frugal, diligent, provident far
mer may grow into competence and
every external accessory to happi-
ness. Each year of his devotion to
his homestead may find it more val
liable, more attractive, than the last,
and leave it better still.
Preserving Eggs.