Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-04-11
Knowing How to Farm.

1t is a common thing for the readers
of English agricultural journals to see
advertisements by young men for an
opportunity to learn the business of
farming. No compensation is required
in any case, and in some the advertiser
not only offers to give his time but ex-
presses willingness to pay something
beside. The contrast between this and
the custom in our own country is so
marked that it never fails to attract
the attention of the reader and to ex-
cite comment. The idea of apprentic.
ing oneself to a farmer for the express
purpose of learning his '' art'' would be
very novel one to nine hundred and
ninety-nine young men oIt of a thou
sand in this country. Necessity in En-
gland compels thorough knowledge
of agriculture by those who propose to
follow it. The soil must be understood,
and the most approved ways of tilling
it must be adopted, else small is the
hope of getting from the small-sized
farms sufficient to remunerate for the
time and labor expended and the capi-
tai invested, to say nothing of being
able to compete in the markets with
American products. The English farmer
knows that we can raise beef on our
Western plains cheaper than he can
do it, and he distinctly sees in the near
future a possibility of being wholly
worsted in that competition under any
circumstances. To do the very best
he can is his only alternative, and
doing the best he can includes the keep
ing of his soil up to the highest stand
ard of fertility and raising the very best
Qattle that the Wgrld can produce. To
do this requires high order of inteIli-
gence and a thorough acquaintance
with the general principles and with
the details of farming.
In this country there is no such iu-
centive. Our prairies are vast, and as
fertile as any soil in the world; and the
country is not yet old enough for the
soil to have become sufficiently ex-
hausted to excite any apprehension for
the future, especially among the un-
thinking, The more thoughtful, of
course, deprecate our usual exhaustive
system of cultiVating the soil, and fore
see trouble unless there is a reform.
But no such fears will become common
with the masses while the erroneous
idea prevails that the country is nearly
boundless in extent, and eXhaustless in
fertility and resources. Plow and SOW,
and the harvest must ripen, is really
the belief of our people. They do not
think that intelligence or even industry
has any thing to do with it, except to
perform these primitive acts. 1t is this
belief that prompts the advice to the
unemployed of all classes to go on the
farm. 1t seems to weigh nothing in
the minds of such advisors that those
whom they advise have often passed
the meridian of life when it would be
thought the very height of folly to
enter upon any new mechanical busi-
ness, or indeed even to emhark in any
mercantile business in which they had
no experience. Horace Greeley said
that man ought not to change his
business after he was thirty-ive years
old, unless he was a horse thief, and
ne stated 3 very excellent rule of life.
By that time habits have become thor
oughly fixed, and are usually top stiA
to be bent to any new course of living,
If our people were crowded upon q
small territory as the people of En-
gland are, and if the soil needed as
much intelligent care as the soil there
needs, the entire population would not |
lhlnk, as they now seem to, that any |
body can be farmer, and instead Of |
urging an addition to our agricultural |
ranks from those who are inexperienced |
in that line, some of those who are now