The Columbus journal., 1882-06-14
Henry Ward Beecher'S Farm,

Mark Twain has written of Mr.. Beech
er's old farm on the Hudson River as
follows:
Mr.. Beecher's farm consists of thirty
six acres, and is carried on on strict
scientific principles. He never puts in
any part of a crop without consulting
his book. He plows. and reaps, and
digs, and sows according to the best au-
thOrities, and the authorities cost more
than the other farming implements do.
AS soon as the library is complete the
farm will begin to be a profitable invest
ment. But book-farming has its draw
backs. Upon n occasion, when it
seemed morally certain that the hay
ought to be cut, the hay-book could not
be found. and before it was found it was
too late, and the hay was all spoiled.
Mr.. Beecher raised some of the finest
crops of wheat in the country, but the
unfavorable difference between the cost
of producing it and its market value aft
er it is produced has interfered cOnsid-
erably with its ucces a q commercial
enterprise. His special weakness is
hogs. however. He considers hogs the
best game a farm produces. He buys
the. original pig for 81. so, and feeds him
$40 worth of corn, and then sells him
for about 80. This is the only CROP he
v e makes any money on. He loses on
the corn, but he makes 81. so on the hog.
He does not mind this. because he never
expects to make anything on corn. And,
any way it turns out, he has the excite
ment of raising the hog, whether he gets
the worth of him or not. His straw
berries would be q comfortable success
if the robins would eat turnips, but they
won't, and hence the difficulty.
One of Mr.. Beecher's most harassing
difficulties in his farming operations
comes of the close. resemblance of diff
ferent sorts of seeds and plants to each
other. Two years ago his far-sighted-
ness warned him that there was going
to be a great scarcity of watermelOns,
and therefore he put in q crop of twen-
ty-seven acres of that fruit. But when
they came up they turned out 10 be
pumpkins, and a dead loss was the con-
sequence. Sometimes . portion of his
crop goes into the ground the most
the i~nfernslest carrots though l have
never heard him express it just in that
way. When he bought his farm he
found one egg in every hens nest on the
place He said that here was Just the
reason 50 many farmers failed; they
scattered their forces too much; con-
centration was the idea. So he gath
cred those eggs together. and put
them all under one experienced
old hen. That hen roasted over
that contract night and day for eleven
weeks, under the anxious personal SUI
pervision of Mr.. Beecher himself, but
she could not phase" those eggs.
Why? Because they were those infa-
nous porcelain things which are used
by ingenious and fraudulent farmers as
g nest-eggs-" But perhaps Mr.. Beecher's
most disastrous experience was the time
he tried to raise an immense crop of dried
apples. He planted $500 worth, but
never M of them sprouted. He has
never been able to understand to this
day what was the matter with those ap-
Piles.
Mr.. Beecher's farm is not a triumph.
1t would be easier on him if he worked
it on shares with some one; but he can
not find anybody who is willing to stand
halt the expense, and not many that are
able. Still, persistence in any cause 10
bound to succeed. He was a very in.
ferior farmer when he first began, but
aprolonged and unfinching assault up
on his agricultural difficulties has had its
effect at last, and he is now fast rising
from affluence to poverty.