Litchfield enquirer., 1880-02-26
An Old Farmers View of Things.

| think "Young Farmer is looking too ers life, when he takes for his text, "Is Connect l icut Life worth Living."-a question which think admits of the same answer given the old lady who asked the conductor where they should go to if the breaks should give way, when they were descending the White l Mountains. Said he, Madam that depends 1 very much upon what lives we have been liv. l ing here." am not of the opinion of " oung Farmer" that God in the distribution of his gifts has left New England, and especially Old Connecticut, entirely out in the cold. We find wherever we go, that too often the bright est rose conceals thorn. It is true the West can boast of a far richer soil than New Eng land, but even there that much dreaded mort gage ot which Young Farmer" speaks, hangs lake a dark cloud, while eight and ten per cent interest has to be paid on the money in- vested in farms. Large crops are raised but the railroads swallow up the profits in trans portation. and we find among nearly all the farmers of limited means, growing feeling of discontent and desire to 'sell out"
 l But, says "Young Farmer, ''as long as the young farmer sees that the grocer with five | hundred and the merchant with three thousand dollars, can make more money and go in bet ter society, than the farmer with an invest ment of ten thousand, so long will the farmer be discontented Now, does it not bring a feeling of contentment to the young farmer, when he sees, as he so often does, the mer- chant and the grocer, after few years of bu- siness, settling with their creditors for twenty
 five, or less, cents on the dollar Statistics show that ninety in every hundred who en- gage ill mercantile pursuits meet with failure, the younger firms being almost invariably crushed out by the older and we'll established ones and would not the per centage of fail ures be st ill larger were the merchant to con- duct his business upon the same slack princi ] pies as the majority of farmers2 and would not the farmer be more successful were he to conduct his business with the same strict care as the successful merchant? l an. aware that the editors of many of our Agricultural papers, who have never held hoe or turned furrOw with the blow, have painted too glowing pict- ures of farm life, and many have been induced thereby without either practical or theoretical knowledge of farming, to leave more remuner- ative, and congenial occupations, and when looking upon their mud bespattered clothes, and blistered hands, fail to see the nobleness and independence of which they had so fond ly dreamed.
 Ever since the edict went forth that ''by the sweat of the brow man should eat his bread" " all have sought shaded path ways in life, where precipitation would flow as little as possible, but let not ' Young Farmer" think the far mer's life the only one of toll. Consider the merchant. how hard he tolls to convince his customers that the cotton goods he is selling was originally from the sheep's back, and that is his invariable rule to sell his goods at less than cost! Consider the minister laboring to please both saint and sinner, in making pasto- | ral calls six days in the week, and preaching l two able discourses on the seventh And since we cannot all be rich, let us learn like one of old ''in whatsoever state we are, there l with to be content. " |