Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1889-03-14
FARM AND HOME.
Earning a Farm.

gent. with good health, willing arms
and fair knowledge of farming, to be-
come the owner of an eastern cultiva-
ted farm, is too often answered in the
negative. The common complaint is
that prices of land are too high, that
interest and the cost of working the
land take all its products, so that liter
ally the farmer thus circumstanced
works for board and clothes, in all ex-
cept the name the servant of a severe
taskmaster. Only the farmer having
capital enough to pay for the farm at
the beginning can hope for success said
success consisting in earning a living
fer himself and family. If he wishes
to accomplish even this the young man
beginning farming without capital
must work for others until he can ac-
cumulate it.
The result OF this teaching is that
the bulk of New England and eastern
young men inclined to farm leave home
and seek the west. There wild land
can be had for little or nothing. BY
working and enduring privations such
as he would not think of putting up
with in the east, young man may in
time make himself home, build barns,
and ultimately become a prosperous
farmer in his locality. Even there,
however, he has his drawbacks. While
making his farm improvements he has
deteriorated soil fertility. He has his
farm, but it is in a less desirable eli
mate than that of his early home, and
including everything has probably cost
fully as much.
At the west, too, a few hundred dol
lars to begin farming with are even
more necessary than in the east In
terest is much higher there, and the
lack of any money is generally the
lack of credit as well. At the east
habits of industry, and promtitude in
meeting obligations as they become
due, soon extends a mans credit as
much as it is best for him to have
Money is comparatively plentiful in all
old localities. In new settlements it is
scarce, and except at extremely harsh
and usurious rates, the man without
available assets can get nothing. In
almost any western town are many
farmers barely getting living, and
only holding on because they cannot
get money to go anywhere else.
Those who experiment in farming
with too little money either east or
west rarely give themselves fair
chance. They attempt too much, are
overweighted, and fail, just as men of
small capital fail in other business at
tempts. There was, perhaps, time
when the purchase or demonstrating of
a large tract of land was good business
policy. Land that by the increase of
settlement becomes more valuable has
been the rule so long that it seems as
If it were al inevitable part of the or
der of things. Instead, however, in
most of the country it has become the
exception. Land increases in value
only as improvements are put upon it,
and to do this costs money. In fact,
large numbers of farms both east and
west can now be bought for merely the
cost of buildings and improvements,
and often for less. In other words, the
land really costs nothing and the pur-
chaser has the alternative of taking it
at the cost of improvements, or taking
wild land and making the improve
ments himself.
No farmer with small capital should
over-burden himself with large
amount of land. He can by his own
labor bring a few acres to high state
OF cultivation with little expenditure
OF money. This pays better than half
working more land and getting a small
Ter crop per acre, hiring help to cult
vate and harvest it, besides paying
interest on this larger area that has
thus been cultivated at loss. 1t is
the great mistake OF small farmers to
suppose that their land is too small in
area to cultivate with profit Those
who think thus often purchase neigh
boring farms with the notion that thus
they can help themselves out. Nine
times in ten these efforts result in
worse failure than would have followed
concentration of effort on the original
number of acres. There is an unbound.
ed prejudice among all Anglo-Saxons
against selling part of their farm. II
1t is more than can be worked with
profit sell until it becomes adapted to
the owners capital and executive abil
ity. A small farm paid for and vel
titled makes a safe home. When it,
capabilities are thoroughly tested, the
owner may be surprised to learn thai
it requires whatever executive force he
can command to manage it.-Americar
Cultivator.
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