American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-02-03
MaXims for Farmers.

HE following good maNlnS should De
carefully read and lived up to by all our
farmers. They are well worth preserving
for constant references
1. Only good farming pays. He who
sows without reasonable assurance of
good crops, annually, might better earn
wages of some capable neighbor than
work for so poor a paymastor as he is GER
tain to prove himself.
2. The good farmer is proved such 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 and
better afterward.
3. 1t is far easier to maintain the pro-
ductive capacity of a farm than to restore
it. To exhaust its fecundity, and then at
tempt It's restoration by buying costly
commercial fertilizers, is wasteful and If
rational
4. The good farmer sells mainly such
products as are least exhaustive. Neces-
sity may constrain him, for the first year
or two, to sell grain, or even hay; but he
will soon send off his surplus, mainly in
cotton, or wool, or meat, or butter and
cheese, or something else that return 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 "no funds 50 with a
farm similarly treated.
5. Rotation is at least negative fcrtliza-
ton. 1t may not positively enrich farm,
it will at least retard and postpone its i'm
poverishment. He who grows wheat
after wheat, corn after corn, for twenty
years, will need to emigrate before the
term is fulfilled. The same farm cannot
support Tor endure) him longer than
that. All our wheat-growng sections of
fifty years ago are wheat-growing no
longer while England grows larger crops
thereof on the very fields thar fed the
armies of SAXON Harold and William the
Conqueror. Rotation has preserved these
as the lack of it has ruined those.
6. Wisdom is never dear, provided the
article be genuine | have known farm
ers who toiled constantly from daybreak
to 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 he fewer failures in farming
than there are at present
7. The best investment farmer can
make for his children is that which sur
rounds their youth with the rational de
lights of beauteous, attractive home.
The dwelling may be small and rude, yet
a 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 50 profitable as that which MAKES
the wife and children fond and proud of
their home.
8. A good practical education, includ-
ing a good trade, is Il better outfit for
youth than rand estate, with the draw
back of an empty mind Many parents
have shaved and pinchcd to leave their
children rich, when half the sum thus
lavished would have profited them far
more had it been devoted to the educa-
ton of their mind, the enlargement of
their capacity to think, observe and work.
The one structure that no ncighborhood
can afford to do without is the school
house.
8. A small library of well-selected books
in his home has saved many youth from
into the bancful ways of the
ness and severity would have bred moth
ing but dislike and fixed resolution to
abscond at the first opportunity, good
books and pleasant surroundings have
weaned many a youth from his first wild
impulse to 90 to sea or cross the CONT
nent, and made him docile, contented,
obedient, happy lingerer by the parental
fireside. In a family, however rich or
cious as thoughtful, watchful love.
10. Most men are born poor, but no man,
who has average capacities and tolerable
l. A ,,1t hp Egp N.lr'l