The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1886-04-10
SETTLERS WANT SMALL FARMS.

Spectators need no advice about
the purchase OF LANDS, nor is it a mat
ter Of special public interest whether
they are successful or unsuccessful in
their ventures but actual settlers need
to be well and practically advised, and
their success or failure is a matter Of
vital interest to both the community
and the State. There may be many
speculative operations in Florida which
will be fruitful mainly in disappoint-
ment, and there will be many actual
settlers who, from some of the many
obstacles which ever confront immi-
grants in new homes, will fail in Flor
ida but, as a rule, it will be the fault
OF the settler and the fault of the eli
mate, soil or possibilities OF the coun-
try One of the common mistakes of
agricultural immigrants is the belief
that they must have as large a farm
here as they would need il Pennsylva-
pia, where they must devote half of
their land and labor to keeping them
selves and their stock during the I'M
productive portion of more than half of
the year. y farm Of twenty acres prop
erly located in Florida is equal to a
farm of sixty acres in the North in pro-
ducing capacity, and no part Of the
farm or labor is necessary to sustain
either family or stock in reproductive
seasons, as there are no producing
periods from January until Jan, 7ry.
The settler who is to depend upon his
own industry and economy to acquire
home must have eighty or more acres
anywhere in the West, but twenty acres
of fertile soil in the newly opened Flor
ida region can be bought for less money
per acre than any land Of equal fertility,
transportation and cheapness OF i'm
provement West of the Father of Wa
tiers and in three or four months time,
and steadily thereafter he can feed him
self and all he possesses from his own
soil with comparatively little labor, ex-
cepting only his wheat bread and gro
ceries. Forty acres are more than any
farmer who expects to do the chief
part of his own work can farm with
profit in Florida. and the man who
farms half that amount well will do
better than his neighbor who attempts
to farm more. When it is considered
that one acre of first-class vegetable
soil in a nearly tropical climate, will
generally produce more than the best
twenty acre field Of wheat in Pennsyl,
vania, and that some ground at least
three times year, the importance of
small farms and good farming may be
appreciated. Even the grasses on
which stock can be as we'll fed as on
our clover and timothy fields of Penn
sylvania, need only few weeks to
make sweet and nutritious pastures, and
the little hay required to keep stock in
the best condition, is hardly to be taken
into the account of the general labor of
the farm. Stock is badly cared for in
most parts of the State only because it
can come SO nearly maintaining itself
that the regulation Southern farmer al
lows it to take its chances for the whole
season, much to his own loss. What
wish to impress upon young men who
want to work themselves into the own
ership of home and a farm that will
afford them good living, with reason
ably assured profits, is that, while they
must have sixty or eighty acres in the
West to do SO, they will be as we'll pro-
vided with land, for practical results,