Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-01-30
aa1isteIlaueuus Reaaing.
FIRST OF THE FARMERS
A Swiss Showing Americans How to
Cultivate Land Properly.

| The land-pOOr farmer Is a Well
known institution in the middle west.
He is frequent in all new countries,
and it is impossible to convince him
of the error of his way. He con-
tinues to hunger and thirst for more
Hand, until at last he has to be content
with six feet of it. There is some rea-
son in his ambition when he gets his
land cheap, in the certainty that Its
value will rapidly increase; but when
a man continues to buy land at a
high price, merely to own 1t, and to
be able to say that he owns every
thing between him and the horizon,
his wisdom may be questioned.
Thousands Of American farmers
who might be comfortable and happy,
with money in the bank and tobacco
in the old tobacco box, are eternally
striving and straining to make the
next payment on the west eight or the
south quarter section, and to pay of
mortgages which are as threatening
as funnel-shaped clouds.
These farmers, in everything but
land, are as poor as Jobs distinguish
ed turkey. They conduct their agri-
cultural operations on a large and
expensive scale. They cover so much
ground that they can't do it properly
and they haven't time to attend to
fertilizing or soil analysis, or trifles
i 80 6nf LIT cultivate fhnir
corn with four-horse cultivators, and
get fifteen bushels an acre where they
should get thirty; they wear out their
land raising wheat, and the wheat
mortgages. In the country Of big
farmers a man who has to be satisfied
with eighty acres is looked upon with
pity, and he usually dies young Of a
broken heart.
Arnold Martin came to this country
from Switzerland to show the folly
Of this system. He was unconscious
| of the mission at the time. He had
no idea that he was destined to be a
voice crying in the wilderness. He
came in the steerage, and his highest
ambition was to get job on an
American farm and draw the princely
| wages of which he had heard in his
| native Alpine village. 1t is eighteen
years since Arnold first beheld Lib
erty in her great act Of enlightening,
the world, and Ellis Island resound-
ed to the clang Of his wooden
| shoon.
He was so poor that he had to work
his way to the west, and when he
reached Pawnee county, Nebraska, he
looked around him and beheld fair
and fertile country, and decided to
travel no further. He secured a
portfolio as third assistant to a
farmer Of the vicinity, and for three
years he labored diligently, and made
reputation as a first-class farm
hand. He was a quiet young man
with little talent as an elocutionist,
but he had good eyes and an excel
lent memory, and as he toiled he OBJ
served, and filed away facts for future
reference.
After three years of arduous toll
he had saved 1912, and then he de-
cided to embark in business for him
self. He bought tract Of twenty
acres near Pawnee City, paying s12.50
an acre for it. People who took an
interest in the young man declared
that no punishment could be too Sc
we're for the man who sold him that
worst piece of land in the county. 1t
was rocky and rough, and the soil had
no substance to 1t, and even the rat
| tle-snakes sidestepped 1t. Kind
hearted folk called upon the misguid-
ed youth to express their sympathy
and mingle their tears with his, but,
in his fatuous forgiving way, he
seemed perfectly satisfied with his
bargain, and the neighbors heard him
yodeling by the hour as he toiled on
his barren acres.
Much water has run under the
bridge since Arnold Martin made this
venture, and now his little farm is
celebrated all over Nebraska, and its
fame is spreading to the far corners
Of the country. The agriculturists who
smiled or wept when they heard of
Arnold's foolish break now repair to
his home to receive instruction and
admonition from him. For he makes
more money from his 20 acres than
the average farmer can hope to make
from $40 acres.
Recently he took a lot of his prod
Tulsa, Okla, and won prizes aggre-
eating s1,167. He was the hero of
that assemblage, and people crowded
around him all day long to ask him
how the thunder he did it, and Ar
mold explained patiently and good
naturedly. He makes no mystery Of
his success. He is making a fortune
on a piece Of land American farmers
considered too poor for hog pas
ture, and he says he thinks he might
have done better had he purchased
ten acres instead of 20. He believes
that 20 acres make almost too large
farm for one man to attend to!
1.-The United States department of
agriculture has sent some Of its ex-
perts to Pawnee county to study Ar
mold Martin and his hip-pocket farm,
and one of those experts, after con-
templating the owners curves for a
few days, said: This man is the
first Of American farmers Then he
went back to Washington and pre-
pared a special bulletin treating Of
Martin and his methods.
Martin has never suffered from land
hunger. At Tulsa he said to a group
of farmers: "a farm of 800 acres is
misfortune, and one Of $40 acres is
downright calamity"-Walt Mason
in Golfers.
You Can't Keep Your Thoughts Secret.
In the January Woman's Home
Companion, Ralph Waldo Trine
writas remarkable article entitled.