Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-02-19
Pretty Good Advice.


The following advice with reference to
keeping out of debt is taken from the
Teras Farm and Home, and is so good and
so applicable to all localities (nodifed,
of course, according to circumstances
that we commend its perusal to our
readers:
Let each man who proposes to live by
farming pre-empt, or buy little piece of
land before he promises to take care of
any mans daughter. When this home is
provided, il IS always soon enough to pop
the question. Build shanty, open a lit
tie field, plant fruit trees; they grow best
on fresh land. They grow as rapidly and
yield as heavily around small log cabin
as on the sunny side of a ten thousand
dollar mansion.
IF you are short of funds, make you a
becstead OF boards and pine scantiings.
Do not promise your merchant ten dol
lars for one Of those Yankee patent pop,
Iar-sided bedsteads. Just wait two yearse
and be able to hand him the cash. and h Q
will just say $3.50 is enough. Make YOU
a dining-tabie Of pine lumber. Don't buy
SO washing machine, unless YOU paw
cash. il cash. $3.50 will buy it, sure.
Don't buy stove the first year. Tell
bIrs. JeTusha Ann you cHaln0t 90 in debt,
and to wait 01e year, and $40 cash will
buy that splendid new America which
Squire Johnson, your village merchant,
now offers you at $50, on twelve months
credit S60e that ten collars, it will buy
q barrel Of elegant flour. Buy Just as
little as possible the first year, and live
on bread and milk, or even on bread and
wafer, rather than buy bacon on credit at
Is cents which, for cash, can be bought
at 1873 cents.
After using the utmost economy in this
direction comes another road that points
to success. Make everything at home that
the soil ana climate, or your skill, or
Jcrusha AIMS skill, can possibly make.
Through the center Of your five-acre
cotton field plant one row of broom corn.
Make your wife about half-a-dozen
brO0ms some rainy day In this you
save SO, and are out say only 80 cents.
Plant One-Quarter of an acre Of Chinese
cane, or say one acre. Grind itnext sum-
mcr, when other work is slack. Sell your
neighbor ten dollars worth, which really
has cost you about So. Plant you One-fOurth
acre Of tobacco; cultivate and manufac-
tUre it Of mornings while Jerusha gets
breakfast Sell old Aunt Dinah q few
pounds to pay for helping your wife
scOur, wash, or weed the garden. Plant
at least half or all your land in corn. Sell
some to a new conner and buy you bed
stead. Sell the old one to Uncle Ned for
helping you clear a new turnip patch.
Gather all your corn fodder while your
creditsystem neighbors are tanning them
selves, or talking about paying Is cents
for calico which your own cash will
buy for 1919 cents per yard. Sell a stack
OF fodder to Smith for that SOW and PIG
of his. Put her pigs up; give them tur-
nips, Stops, potatoes-anything you do
not need ana you will find in January
next they will net you at least 100 pounds
each.
Do all this, and you will be more loved
and respected by good men and good
women than he whose Jerusha Ann
wears "a balmorals and So bonnets,
which stand on the merchants books
thus: 1 pair balmorals, 81; 1 lady's
hat, IS. Besides this, by the time little
Minnie and little Johnny are Of proper
age, you can buy them a good saddle
horse each for cash