The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1877-11-07
How 10 Make q Living.
[St. Louis Republican,

While the trades and other vOca-
tons pursued in cities frequently fail
to furnish a living to some who follow
them, the soil never fails; it will
always yield a support to the man
with his family who works it indus
triously and judiciously. 1t is an in
structive fact that there are few
farmers in this country who become
beggars or tramps; even the poorest
of them manage TO make a living
without appealing for charity. And
il is not necessary that man should
own what in the West is meant by a
farm, that is fifty or one hundred
acres Of land, to make a living. In
point of fact, Western farmers own
too much land; they pay taxes on
more than they can cultivate and gen.
orally what they do cultivate is so in
sufficiently titled that it yields only
one-half the amount it is capable of
yielding.-In many parts of Europe
family will make living on three
acres, two acres or even one acre of
ground and pay rent on it beside.
And this is done, not on the Western
system of farming, with a wagon,
horse plows and other expensive ap-
planes, but with a few simple i'm
plements such as a spade and hoe. The
market gardeners near large cities in
this country frequently support them
selves and lay up some money by
raising successive crops of vegetables
the same year OH the same acre.
The trackmen on our railroads fire.
quently make one-third their living
for their families from the patches Of
ground along the track which they
cultivate at night and morning. 1t is
true this way of making livelihood
requires hard work and close economy;
but what calling is there in the present
severe struggle for existence that does
not exact hard work? The question
with the thousands of IDLE persons
who swarm in the cities is, not how to
make n fortune, nor how to get along
as well Us Others who are better of,
but how to make a living without ask
ing for charity. There is many a
rich farmer in Missouri who began by
cutting wood or splitting rails at fifty
cents a day, and there are rich men
in ST.. Louis who got their first start
by working at night when others were
asleep, denying themselves all COM
forts and saving the money which
others would spend. What these men
did others can do. Land is cheap in
the West-cheap even in Illinois and
Missouri. The Illinois bottom, OppO-
site St. Louis, will yield support at
the rate of two acres to a family, and
there is good land in the counties adj
joining st. Louis that can be bought
for twenty to thirty dollars an acre.
1t is not difficult for an industrious
man to buy several acres of land at
these low prices and pay for them in a
few years, and support his family in
the meantime. Thousands of farmers
are doing this constantly. One-half
the IuTulS III mlcSOuil NcIO pIOOdDty
bought on credit ami paid for of their
own products.
The authorities Of our cities are
puzzling themselves with the question
of finding work for the thousands of
unemployed persons who thrOng in
the soup houses in winter, and are
degenerating into chronic paupers.
But there is no work in the cities to be
found; the proper thing to be done is
to get the unemployed out of the city.
There is an unfailing livelihood to
be made by tilling the soil, and "a
long as land is as cheap in this coun-
try as it is now, there is no good
excuse for the willful id'eness and i'm
pudent pauperism that prevails.
As an experiment, | STEPPED the
leaves of the sweet elder strong, and
snr;rLIoJ ON NV oahha0a (1S0 haod \