Delaware Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1843-1874, 1873-11-13

lHE uNPRoFITABLENEss OF FARNIN0.-
foliticians do not always hit the nail on the
head when talking to farmers. As rule, the
politician at the fair is the politician still speak
ing for political effect. Now and then, howev-
err lie gets astray from politics, and perhaps saws
something af practical import to his hearers
Such was the case with Gen. Butler, at the
State Fair in New Hampshire, when he touch
ed upon the unprofitableness of farming in these
words
1t is complained that farming is improbable.
Men are leaving the farm and seeking employ
ment and manufactures and the trade Of the
city. New-Hampshire, the agricultural part of
Massachusetts,, Of Maine and Vermont, have
gone back In population and in productive az
ricuitural wealth in the last ten years. With
out seeking TO touch all the reasons for II, may
we not find 1t largely in this, that we ask too
much OF the farmp Having capital of 81 900
or 5000, or $1,000 invested in 1t, we ask that
The farm shall support our families, educate our
| children, and give us comparative wealth for
old age beside.
| ana yeI, do we trest it as other men do their
business by which they succeed ? II we fail in
getting all this from 1t, we say at once that
farming Is Improbable We are rnmindful Of
the fact that in mercantile business only one
in hundred Is fairly successful, and only one
IN athousand eminently so. Does not farming
40 as well as that, and better Does only one
III hundred farmers sue coed 10 a competence
ana only one in q thousand succeed to affiu-
| ence' AMI yet do we not deal with our farms
IN the same way that we have seen that the
| hatlon does with its producers? Do we not take
everything of and put comparatively nothing
| on the land
In every other business of life all the gains a
man gets he Immediately puts back into his
business. The merchant increases his capital
year by year, frem gains of thspreceding year
IL ne Is prudent man, until it becomes as large
as ne can probably manage. But If the farmer
makes any surplus on his farm, as rule does
ne return 1t to his land. either in increased fac
tles LOT farming, In enriching tie soil, adding
10 his stock, or draining his land? On the con.
| traty, Is ne not much more likely to Invest II,
railroad shares, or bonds or some manufactur
Ing enterprise, or loan 1t TO some neiehbor P
| havlng taken away from the farm what the
farm has brought 10 him, and ought to be re-
turned TO 1t again, TO make II productive, he
leaves II impoverished and then complains that
his gains do not increase.
Is 1t not the difficulty that he ia continually
| taxing away the increase of his capital and
leaving II only what II was at the beginning p
Inc merchant, as we have seen, increases b is
eapnai year by year; but the farmer too frequent
takes MS and invest In other enterprises, and
.nen complains that the farm does not succeed,
NO farmer that ever heard of ever morteaged
his farm to buy manure to put on il vel men
DO mortgage their farm for the purpose of buIId.
ing fine house and many lake all the earn.
| lngs OF the farm for ten years for that burmese
Inc mortgage. or the Indictment, once on &
farm, as rule In the past, except in the change
Oh fortune made by the change of prices arising
from the war, remains for years, il not forever
-Rurdl Home.