Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-09-01

Bro. Scobsy's Experience has Literally
damned" the Idea into Many Brains that
there is aSpsndid Profit in Jamine Straw.
berries--Now See How Ten Acres Supported
New England Family.
Boston Transcript.
MY friend and had been talking
about the growing tendency in Amer
lea to return to country life, and then
learned for the first time that his
was a ten-acrc farm, or had been for
twenty-five years, until three years
ago, when five more acres were added
to it.
"And do you really mean," said,
"that off these ten acres you have
supported your large family and in
rugged New England?"
"Yes, and sent the two elder boys
to college for the junior and senior
years and had, with my wife, a trip to
Europe"
The memory of the thousand acre
farms | had seen in the West rose up
very wildly beside this toy affair
and frankly confessed to my friend
that his ways and their results were
beyond my understanding.
"Well," he said, "there is great
deal in choosing the work we are best
fitted to do. 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 a good num-
Der of young men returned 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
has made success of western emigra-
ton, but almost never of the hun
dreds who have made dismal failures.
And SO, it was perhaps, in this way,
that was led to conclude that q few
acres cultivated, every foot, and with
neighbors and schools and churches
and doctors and middlemen or near
markets and in healthful neighbor-
hood, was better outlook than many
acres in the West all studded over
with chills and fever traps and loneli.
ness. So, starting with patrimony
of $4,000, paid $500 for this place
Otis owners, unable to make a living,
had gone West) and l spent $1,000
more in repairing and furnishing. I
brought my bride to it one summer
morning and told her we had the
farm, the interest of $1,000 and our
faith to start life with"
"But the surprising thing is not
that YOU have done SO much with 50
little, but that you have done it on
WORKOUT SOIL"
"That the New England soil is
worn out is the most amusing argu-
ment that is ever presented against
New England farming. The soil is
not worn out and is only hard by COM
parison with western virgin soil. Old
England is smaller than the State of
New York and has been feeding her
millions for centuries and exporting as
we'll. Germany sends to America
cargoes of vegetables and, fact dis
graceful and unbelievable, hundreds of
barrels OF eggs yearly. Mountainous
little Switzerland 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 share of its
delicate products. wish l could tell
you the exact NUMBER have it
somewhere-of the hundreds OF thous-
ands of chickens raised in France
yearly and the great income there.
FROM"
"But all these people, you forget,
are just living; there is no tomorrow
for them"
IL don't think the tillers of the soil
in France, for instance, need come to
America to learn the lesson OF to-mor-
row. Their tomorrow is assured in
the peacefulness, content and quiet in
dustry of to-day. The fact is, be-
lieve am coming to the conclusion
that vast territory is not an unmiti-
gated blessing. Our young men are
led by it to reach afar off for what lies
UNDECIDED at their very doors and they
are often wrenched to pieces by the
effort. Hundreds of them after dreary
failures are now wearing their lives
out on misery wages, while the farms
of their ancestors are going to ruin"
"But you must confess that for
tunes are not made OH FARMS"
Perhaps not, great fortunes, but
the rest and peace and homeness and
healthfulness of q country life may
we'll be taken in exchange for the bare
dream of a fortune and more than you
think would take them if they were
not crippled by fear to move steE
from their assured crust"
"Well. now let us 60 back and tel
me, pray, how you have brought up 6
large family on ten acres"
cit has been done by industry ant
by economy and by turning ever,
shadow of all opportunity to advant
age. Everyone of us has been a pro
ducer. Everything possible has beef
v,,ado fo ,roJuoa E,on 49,,