The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-06-20

its about all of the enterprises open to
human labor in our inland country.
i" Farms are cheap-may be bought
everywhere for less than the buildings
cost" That is true, but the same
thing could probably be said of New
York city, or even Chicago. If either
city should be sold out at auction to-
morrow the cash sale would not equal
the actual cost of improvements added
by the hand of man to the land as
originally purchased. The same is
true of three-fourths of the manufac-
turing plants of New England; also
of nearly all the mercantile establish
ments. Profits A prominent lawyer of
Orleans county said to me recently:
" In my judgment the actual cash
income of all the lawyers of the
state of Vermont would not average
81 900 per year from legitimate legal
services. A lawyer of New Hampshire
placed the estimate lower still when
judging of the legal practice in New
Hampshire. The income of all min
listers and teachers in this county is
certainly less than $1,000. When the
families dependent upon the incomes
described have balanced their yearly
accounts the yearly accumulations can
not be large in any of them. The
blacksmiths, millers, carpenters, and
seventy-fve per cent of the traders,
with harness-makers and tinsmiths,
have not been for twenty years much
more than living and supporting their
families. If they have laid by $50
per year they have done well. No
body will turn from fortune honor
ably gained, but very small per cent
of the men of New England who are
sixty years of age are worth $4,000 in
clear cash, or in property convertible
into cash, who have gained that prop
erty by their own industry. OF those
thus ranked farmers will constitute no
mean proportion. The DOCTORS ideas
of interest are true, but rates of inter-
est must grow less as soon as the
special demands for capital in the West
cease. The territories where high
rates are obtained are narrowing every
year. The margin over actual living
expenses is very small in all homes
where the head of the family gains his
support by labor at first hand. Other
things being equal, the farm is paid
for the soonest which is large enough
to employ the labor of two men, as
compared with one upon which one
does his own and all the work The
second man, as hired man, adds an
equal amount of labor to the farm, and
hence doubles the farms income with
out a corresponding increase of ex-
pense. With average management
$4,000 farm can be paid for in Or
leans county as quickly in number of
years as $4,000 farm, when each is to
be paid for from itself. Much of the
misery of the present is from the desire
to be rich quickly, when we have moth
ing to aid us in that effort but two or
four weak hands and heads, but poorly
educated. A Vermont boy went into
Texas ten years ago with nothing, and
rumor says he is worth half million.
His opportunity was open before for
others. He alone improved it. That
opportunity represented no standard of
labor or of planning that can be
universally repeated. The business is
paying one when you can gain COM
Portable living, and little more, main
tain a good reputation and enjoy
pleasant home, with the various insti-
tutions of civilized life'open to inhu-
ence your daily life.