The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1902-08-20
THE ADVERTISER.
LAURENs, s. c., Aug. go, 1909.
Farming as a Business.

Farming as a Business.
THE ADVERTISER has no farmers on
its staff but we believe that, il we
should set ourselves to the task right,
we could farm successfully. This
sounds like a boast but we have solid
reasons for making it. We mention
them because they may encourage 9th
ers who may expect to farm.
We observe that from year to year,
take the last ten years,-rains. fall on
the just and unjust, the poor and the
rich, the poor farm and the good farm
In about the same proportions. We
observe that here and there are farmers,
some with a little land and some with q
big tract, who are Independent, who are
saving q little money every year and
making their homes more valuable
and more comfortable. A pretty
good number of these farmers are
scattered over Laureps at least ten
now to where was n twenty years
ago. Many of these we'll doing farm
ers have lands that were as poor and
sterile as a~nybody's when they bought
them. Often one sees q thriving farmer
and On an adjoining place a farmer
who Is in debt and whose farm is going
to ruin. The two get the same seasons
and have the same soil. One Is a fail
nre and another Is a success. Now we
lay it down that save in rare instances
where peculiar misfortune pursues q
man, N farmer may succeed as. we'll
as another provided he works as hard
and has the same brains. If Jones is
making a success of farming, there is
no excuse for the failure OF Smith or
Brown. 1t will always be noticed
though that Jones' farm is terraced,
that it is worked industriously, that
the forest land on it is preserved and
that the gullies are filed. If the
Browns and the Smiths and all the
rest will keep their lands terraced and
gullies filled, If they will every year
richer than the year before, they too
will raise paying crops and grow rich
or.
Perhaps some of you will laugh at us
for saying it but it is a fact hat to-day
farming here in upper South Carolina
is about the safest business and the
surest in the world. We do not say
that a man will get rich quick farm
ing. But there is less risk, less specu-
ulation in it. and less reason to fail
than In any other business known. We
believe that more people are succeed
ing in 1t than in any line OF life. OF
course a man whose home, stock and
land represent an investment of only
two thousand dollars, or half that, will
not accumulate q fortune or make
enough to live on like a prince, send
ing boys and girls to colleges. But he
will live better and have more in the
end, provided he recognizes that four
won't go into three and lives on what
he makes than the man with a two
thousand dollar store. Many people
are born poor and stay poor. Every
body can't be rich. But the farmers
chance is the best. If this does not
seem true to any farmer, let him go 10
G%reenville or come to this town and
count the men who have tried store
keeping or law and other things and
have failed. Two thousand dollars o
year can't be made easily out of a two
thousand dollar farm but when the far
mer adds up what he gets, his house
rent, garden vegetables, chickens, eggs,
poultry, milk and water, 1.-THE town man
pays for water), fruits, melons and a
hundred other little things that the
town man must buy or go without, he
Will find that the two thousand dollar
farm is yielding two or three times as
much as the same amount invested in
any business is yielding. The average
farmer in Laurens who Is running a
three or four horse farm is getting far
more OF the comforts and luxuries of
life than the average man with a family
In a city on a fifteen hundred or two
thousand dollar salary. Every egg that
the city man eats costs at least two
cents; every pound of good butter,
thirty cents; and every fresh vegeta.
BILE, every peach, blackberry and apple
in proportion. Count the butter and
eggs your family consumes in o week
aud you may obtain an idea of what
you are getting in money without
knowing it..
OF course the man who does not live
on what he makes, who cannot master
the proposition that four won't go in
to three, will be unhappy and in debt
and uncomfortable but there are more
OF his sort comparatively In town than
In the country.
We expect to say more on this line
hereafter, developing some of the
thoughts we have hinted at. What we
have said may put somebody to think
ing.
Wv
TO "The Old Antis.o
THE ADVERTISER takes 1t for
granted that four-ffths of the "Antis''
or former "Antis" or conservatives,
have heads cool and clear enough to
know tina they cannot afford RI ttd,om