The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1884-12-27
A Ten.AcPe Farm.
And What Came OF it; College and For
eign Travel.
Nc,o York Obserer.

0l8u 1EdV6l.
NcU York Obserer.
My friend and l had been talking
about the growing tendency in America
to a return to country life, and then |
learned for the first time that his was
bnt a ten-acre farm, or had been for
twenty-five years, until three years ago,
when five acres more were added to it.
s'And do you really mean," | said,
"that off of these ten acres you have
supported your family, and in rugged
New England ?"
dyes; and sent the two elder boys to
college for the Junior and Senior years,
and had, with my wife, trip to Eu-
rope"
The memory of the thousand-acre
farms l had seen in the West rose up
very wildly beside this toy affair, and
l frankly confessed to my friend that
his ways and their results were beyond
my understanding.
"Well," he said, "there is a great
deal in choosing the work we are best
fitted to do. l like farming, and l do
not like the noise of the world. So |
chose farming for my work. Then
when l left college and was casting
about for the cleareSt road on which TO
settle, l stumbled upon good number
of young men returning from the West,
bankrupt in almost everything but their
eloquence to plead against emigration
westward. In the East, they said, we
hear of the one man who is a success,
but almost never of the hundreds who
are failures. And SO it was perhaps in
this way that | was led to conclude
that a few acres cultivated every foot,
and with neighbors and schools, and
churches, and doctors, and middle-men
or near markets, and in a healthful
neighborhood, was a better outlook
than many acres in the West, all stud
ded over with chills and fever traps and
Loneliness. So s.a-.;rr - patriI o
ny Of $4,000, I paid $500 tof1nfs place
its owners, unable to make living,
had gone West-and I spent SI2oo
more in repairing and furnishing. |
brought my bride to it one summer
morning, and told her we had the farm,
the interest of $4,000 and our faith to
start life with"
"But the surprising thing is not that
you have done SO much with so little,
but that you have done it on WORKOUT
SOIL"
"That the New England soil is worn
out is the most amusing argument that
is ever presented against New England
farming. The soil is not worn out, and
is only hard by comparison with western
virgin soil. Old England is smaller
than the State Of New York and has
been feeding her millions for centu.ies,
and exporting rs we'll. Germany sends
to great America cargoes of vegetables,
and, fact disgraceful and almost unbe-
lieveable, hundreds of barrels of eggs
YEARLY. Mountainous little Switzer-
land takes care of herself and exports too.
While comparatively small France has
worked over and over again every inch
of her soil, and given to all the world a
share of its delicate products. | wish
I could tell you the exact number
have it somewhere-of the hundreds of
thousands of chickens aised in France
yearly, and of the great income there
FROM"
"But all these people, you forget, are
jsut living; there is no tomorrow Tor
| them"
81 don't think the tillers of soil in
France, for instance, need to come to
America to learn the lesson ofto-morrow.
Their tomorrow is assured in the peace
fitness, and content, and quiet indus
try of to-day. The fact is, | believe l
am coming to the conclusion that vast
territory is not an unmitigated blessing.
| Our Young men are led by it to reach
afar off for what lies UNDECIDED at their
very door, and they are often wrenched
to pieces by the effort. Hundreds OF
them, after dreary failures, are now
wearing their lives out on miserly wages,
while the farms of their ancestors are
going to ruin"
"But YOU confess that fortunes are
are not made on FARMS"
"The rest, and peace, and homell-
| ness, and healthfulness of a country
| life may we'll be taken in exchange foi
the bare dream of fortune, and more
than YOU think would take them if they
were not crippled by a fear to move q
step from their secured crust"
"Well, now let us go back, and tel
me, pray, how you have brought up
large family on ten acres ?"
at has been done by industry, econ
omy, and turning every shadow of al
opportunity to advantage. Every ont
of us has been producer. Everything
possible has been made to produce
Even our two sugar naples have con
tributed their share. My eldest daugh
ter has made bees her study, and has
regular market in Boston and Spring
field for her honey. My two eide
sons, when home, devoted themselve
especially to the raising of aSparagu
and celery, and became famous in tn
growing of both. 1t was for these tw
} vegetables that have bought the extr
five acres for my two younger sons, VIII
will be farmers. Our chickens and OF
turkeys in winter have steady sale
near cities; and we sell hundreds {
eggs besides. This very parlor carps
! is the result of the sale of blackberr
, preserves-berries gathered an thes
; Franklin hills, where hundreds of quar-
) of them yearly go to waste. You know
perhaps, that we import from Epglan
L &c