Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-05-12
learning Farming.

Learning Farming.
.xht man to 60 to farming, who
OuSS..t,e or no experience, and who
hss III le' t%wenty-one, thirty or forty years
may This is sometimes q %perplexing
old! .;on to men who have been trained
ques shor nnrsuits. A question very SIM
in o. ~ Il now lies before us, and the in
liar 10 a nretty fair indication that the
qulry . ,Ib makes it will achieve success
man NV g farm. if he goes on It is
on on or GREAT herd Of people who think that
1n p,.5Sody can make a farmer, who fur
any, ny the botches in agriculture, or a por-
lils MS, Of them. 1t is unfortunate for any
ton moi. to be early trained in the bust
o Ones which he proposes to follow for
n me- s. the training is a proper one, but
n1s, Fact will not necessarily prevent
tna aooss, It will be remembered that
NC Greeley thought that no one but a
enrse thief should change his business
I.tor he was forty years old. But this
al. aat correct. There are thousands of
Is forty wears old who should change
a m'air business. Horse stealing is quite
"oonmmendable business compared with
~ vacations of some men, and a nan
III. a,'rht to get out of any disreputable bust
ness ue: whatever his age may be. But Mr..
r. meant that after that age hab-
is were so firmly fixed, and the man
~ old, that, as a rule, he could not
sco1ire proficiency in a new calling. At
last last it is fairly to be presumed that he
want this. But it is not true. AS a
waiter of fact, men seldom begin to
achieve much before they are forty. At
that ace they are still young and in the
nr;de Of manhood. The Judgment has
maturcd and they are men in all par
ticulars. All the disadvantages they
have in entering upon a new business is
that they have to spend valuable time in
mastering details which might have
been mastered early. That is a misfor-
time, but not such a serious one as
should be considered q bar to their en-
tering upon a new business. One of the
most eminent surgeons that New York
ever had was a carpenter, working at
the bench until he was past forty years
of age. One of Americas most success
full actors never set foot upon the stage
until he was over forty, and we might
make a very large list of men who be-
ran a successful life ut first at Just
about this period.
In the matter of farming there are
some positive advantages in beginning
at a comparatively late time of life,
strange as that remark may at first
seem to be-. Under such circumstances
success must depend upon the adoption
e cop1a oro1rr <hn n,,Nonoro,yc n,nfhoIc
and there is no blind prejudice to pre-
vent the adoption of the best. We do
not know that farmers are any more
loath to adopt innovations than any
other classes are, but it is a fact that the
progress of agriculture is retarded on
account of our love for old theories and
worn-out methods. The child is entirely
too apt to get into the footsteps
of the father and remain in them. He
plants and c%ultivates just as his father
did. He adopts all that is good and all
that is bad in his fathers practices, and
his answer to every appeal to adopt bet
ter methods, is, my father did not do
that way and he always got along we'll
enough. The man whose father was notin
the calling which he adopts, of course,
has no obsolete ideas and methods to
entail upon the child, and consequently
the latter will not be handicapped by
them.
Men do not find much difficulty in
getting on in a line of business, if they
are willing to learn. It is the man who
knows it all that makes a failure. We
find such men who were born and bred
in farm life. You cannot teach them
anything. They do not want farm pa
pers, for there is nothing for them to
learn. They despise farmers conven-
tons, for if anything is said in them that
does not agree with their notions and
practices, it lis nonsense, and it is useless
to sit and listen to what does not con-
form to their notions and practices.
You. will also find such men among
those who adopt farming in later life.
Thinking that all there is to do, is to
pillow and sow, they spurn advice, and
as a result do not even pillow and SOW
properly. Failure, complete or com.
parative, is the result with both classes.
But the farmer who studies and learns
makes progress, and the man who can.
didly confesses that he knows nothing,
but is willing to begin at the foot of the
ladder, and work up, has at best a fail
opportunity to make a successful.
farmer, eve though he be forty years
old when he begins Western Rural.