Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1902-04-08
THE FARMER AND FARM LIFE.
DON'T SELL THE OLD FARM.

There is something sad in contemplat
ing the sale of an old farm upon which
several generations have toiled, raised
families of children and had home. A
writer in the Indiana Farmer says:
God speed the day when home will be
too dear and sacred to be considered as
mere merchandise. A man who is con-
tinually selling, buying and moving is
teaching his children to be as restless as
himself. What does this all tend to? TO
dissolution of statehood; to dissolution
of home ties; the banishment OF all the
beauty of home life; the breaking up OF
Americanism; the dissolution of energy
and the robbing life of its aims.
Life without an Objects life that fails.
Every young man should have in his
minds eye an ideal home; let him think,
plan and toll day by day to build it, to
perfect its loveliness and enhance its
usefulness. What matter how high or
low the price of the land, somewhere he
must have a home; mot merely four
square walls;" but a place beautiful; a
place where his children will gladly turn
in from the weary town; always per-
manent where they will always know
the road home; where his own tired self
can recuperate and feel that tits good to
live.
What is more pitiable than rolling
along the highway in muddy March the
congested pile of some farmers home?
Why sell? If the purchaser can profit by
his investment, so can you. l know
men three score years of age selling what
has taken all those years to procure, and
going where land was cheaper to build
and climb again, as if they had time
leased forever. One hundred dollars an
acre is not too high for land to return a
fair profit, but it is too high to farm the
old way; so men, by selling seem to run
away from progress. A few miles north
of France are the Jersey islands, home
of the Jersey cattle; Land rents there
at from $50 to 500 per acre. How can
they pay that price? BY judicious and
scientific breeding, feeding and hus-
bandry, nothing more. We must wake
up to the new era of agriculture, we
must take science with one hand and the
plow with the other. We cannot ignore
science, which is only truth explained.
We must read, think, read. We must
consider opinions of men who have made
success behind the basket, behind the
plow, or we cannot keep abreast with
progress. Derision of book farming
must pass.
The farmer who has money idle about
him while his stock goes shelterless
through the winter is failure. | know
of several of that class. 1t is more
profitable to be in debt in the right way
than to have few hundred idle about
you when its use is needed.
There are hundreds of farmers who do
not know our government expends
thousands annually to help them, yet
they read little and care little. The
going up in price of land will certainly
be an incentive to better methods. The
old-time farmer will have to turn new
leaf or 90 out of business. The former
would be wise. No, don't sell the old
home. Stand by your fireside, old man,
in the evening of your life; earth offers
nothing better than what you have.
Stand by the homestead, young man;
the possibilities of earth are with you;
go straight on with progress and when
the years have rolled by the cock in your
barnyard will crow triumphant success.