The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-10-03
NOT NECESSARY TO STAY IN A RUr.

take the hobbies off your horse in the
morning providing you have horse
and hobble it-that he keeps on hop.
pling, as he hoped all night, until be
sees another horse trot?
That's the way with men. They
need the example of others to make
them get up and trot. No man needs
it so much as the city man who has
been bumped over desk so long that
ne has worn holes in it and you could
hang a harness on the crook in his
back, says the Kansas City Star.
Many such men have stuck to their
pens and their books making other
persons rich, until they come to be-
lieve that there's nothing else in life
for them except to stay in the rut and
be an everlasting wornout, pale-faced
drudge-along with all the other
drudges who make up the complex
items of city's life.
They need for example some one to
tell them how to get away from the
cramped up, narrow, pro6tless exist
ence which they have found impossi-
BILE to change. Sometimes they go
on working for $50 or 500 or-in ex-
ceptional cases-$75 month with no
advancement possible, because their
sort of work never did rate higher
forever and ever up against the snub-
bing post; ropes and halters all over
them, like horse that might do
something worth seeing if only he was
loose. They've been hobbied, these
men, year after year, and they've
hoped dismally about in the same
old pasture until they could go it with
their heads in gunny sacks and get
just about as good returns in the way
of a decent living.
There is a place for the man. who
hasn't made good. It's on the land.
He need not, necessarily, give up the
position in town in order to care for
an acre and get a good living from it,
but it won't be long, if the man is
worth considering, before the acre
will be, not an adjunct but the main
source of the fanily's income and an
independence of spirit, the happy
sense of something accomplished for
effort put forth will take the place of
the old cheerlessness that came the
night after pay day.
A whole lot of men in this world
don't know how much ground there
is in an acre and some who do know
haven't the faintest idea of what can
be produced on 1t and how much lux
ury it will provide for a family.
Most farmers believe they have done
well if they get $50 or 200 bushels of
potatoes from an acre, but that's be-
cause they don't know that others
have produced 1884 bushels on that
much ground; they haven't heard
that one farmer in Minnesota, with
scientific methods, grew I, 100 bushels
of potatoes on an acre-potatoes be-
ing quoted only as one example of
many to be cited later in support of
the one-acre idea.
asE1~-etsl1-s E.:As1- L-e---1ss ssa-r----r---:-
tion is not put forward as Offering
freedom only to men who haven't
made good in the city. It for every
man who would improve himself and
his position In life, who wants to get
away from the stuffy walls and high
rents to the open fields. He need
not buy farm of 10 or so or 100 acres.
One acre Is square about 2o9 feet
each way, or 4,84o square feet, and
it will, if properly handled, in way
that soon can be learned, give returns
that will surprise the holder. He
need not go far from the city, either.
He may get his acre or two within
the reach of quick transportation to
the city so that his products would get
to the consumers at the time when
most needed and whenthe priceis high
est. He may, in this way, add to his
income by working after the city's
labors are finished, in an occupation
that will give him health and strength
quicker than any doctor or any athletic
club could give it and, at the same
time, he and his family would have
such pleasures of entertainment as
city may provide.
Time was when almost anyone
could be farmer. Now it requires
education, and education along these
lines is within reach of every intelli-
gent person. The value of this in
struction, the profits to be derived
from small plots of ground under sci
entifc methods that any man may
learn, has been proved near Kansas
City. The land is waiting for others
just outside the city, the same oppor-
tunities are there; the soil is ready to
be enriched and where needed for in
tensive farming the stuff to enrich it
may be had for the hauling.
It's chance for those who want a
chance.