Year: 1859

We doubt whether any olher country ex-
hibits larger amount or proportion of USE
less talent, of misdirected energy, than ours.
Our clever young men, in fearful supera-
bundanee, addict themselves TO law, to phys
ic, TO commerce, mainly because these seem
the only pursuits which promise wealth ald
distinction. Hazardous as merchandising
is known to be; long and toilsome as is the
path TO eminence and fortune at the bar, or
in medicine, these seem to most of our as
Piring youth the only official avenues 10
fame and fortune; hence they are uniformly
ruinously crowded. There has been no day
Of the last forty years in which there were
not four times as many trying to live by
trade in this country as were needed in that
ocoupation-twice as many as could posi-
bly, succeed. Hence the fatal expansion
and loosness of mercantile credit; hence the
failure Of at least nine-tenths of all who ep-
gage in the traffic. To fail is as natural an
end TO mercantile career in this country,
as 10 be killed is 10 the soldier enlisted for
life. If man opens store, the ready in
quiry is, How long will he lass?" and he
who escapes bankruptcy for SO long as ten
years, does well-better than the average.
We could name country villages which have
had their fifteen or twenty mercantile firms
in the course of the last thirty years, and
broken them all within two or three; and OF
these not one has retired with competence.
One is trading yet, and solvent; two, per-
haps, have retired, or removed, losers, but
not broken; the rest have gone the way Of
all American traders, or SC nearly all that
the exceptions help 10 prove the rule. or
the young men who will this year embark
in trade, it is safe TO say that thres-fourths
will want a national bankrupt law within
the next ten years, and another eight within
twenty. But they cannot break so fast that
others will not scramble for their places
Thousands of new concerns will be opened
this year, to be closed as thousands were in
lS57-'58. 1t were idle TO demonstrate
against this tendency; the thing TO be done
is to countervail 1t.


OF the need of good farmers among US
we have frequently spoken. We will let
no ons quarrel with US as to what constl.u-
tes good farmer, since we conoede that ev-
cry tiller Of the soil who grows large average
crops pretty uniformly, makes his farm rich
er each year, and realizes a profit there
from, is of the right sort, though he has no
knowledge of and no faith IN science; never
saw drain tile, and believes the education
which sufIices for an OK good enough for a
farmer. That there is deplorable def
cheney Of good farmers, even Of this sort, is
shown by the fact that the average yield of
our farms is diminishing. that of wheat be-
ing hardly half SO much as it was fifty years
ago; while in England and Scotland it has
nearly doubled during the same period
Attribute this falling off TO whatever insect
or other mischief you may, we are sure that
of certain elements essential &c wheat-is
the real and principal cause. That the
midge has destroyed the growing wheat on
thousands Of acres Of virgin soil does not
shake our conviction that, had wheat been
grown but once in four years throughout
our country, with proper treatment of soil
and rotation of crops intermediately, we
should have suffered Omparatiyely little by
rust, or blight, or insects.


The Hessian fly came to US Gas is suppos-
ed from Europe; but, compared with This
country, Europe suffers very little from this
and all other destroyers. Man was not
made TO be baflled and defeated by worm;
but If the worm is allowed TO have the field
to himself, the man has no right TO CON-
plain. We hold that if half cur capable,
cleer-seeing, ambitious young men were to
devote 10 agriculture the energy, enterprise,
knowledge, that they now give to trade and
the professions they would greatly bless
those left in stores or offices, render our
farming generally more efficient and sue
cessful than it now is, and add millions 10
the annual product and aggregate wealth Of
the country.


But, beyond this, there opens vast, in
viting field for talent and enterprise in man
ufactures, to which we would invite the at
tentiOn Of our ysunF men.


This country has become the largest mar
ket on earth for fabrics, in proportion 10 its
population. It's rapidly increasing in pop
ulation and consumption. Whoever among
us knows how to make almost anything well
and cheaply, need not look abroad for mar
ket. We buy more broadcloth annually.
than any other nation, yet we. do no: make
i