FARMING FOR SUCCESS. IQl 



will assume it to be thirty cents a lumdrod. We have 39.2 cents on 

 a bushel of freight, which is virtuall}' a tariff in our favor. Then 

 our corn stalks are worth (100 lbs. to the bushel) 50 per cent, more 

 to us than to them, probabl}- more, but this will give 12| cents in 

 our favor, or a total of 52 cents a bushel in our favor ; 25 cents will 

 pay for fertilizers to raise a bushel here and keep the farm good, and 

 more, while theirs are depleting. Farming is certainly going to be 

 more prosperous in the East than in the "West, and 1 should prefer 

 to own a good New England farm than a similar Western farm. 

 Acting in this belief, I am now engaged in full faith in the system of 

 farming proposed to you, and have not as yet been disappointed. 



Capital Required. 



Any occupation whose chief factor involved is muscular exertion, 

 receives low compensation. The returns for the labor of the farm- 

 ers of New England at $1.25, has far exceeded the returns of the 

 capital invested in their farms. The amount of capital and skill in- 

 volved in our low t3'pe of farming, has brought our condition and 

 rewards very close to the pay of day laborers, and less than skilled 

 labor. Our farmers look upon their business as an opening to put 

 or expend their labor, rather than as a field for investment of 

 capital. This policy is to be reversed if high social position or finan- 

 cial success is expected for our business. English farmers not 

 infrequentl}' have a personal capital of $75 to even $100 for every 

 acre of their arable farm land, while, speaking from memory, their 

 average is $50 per acre ; and yet their tenant farmers pay from $5 

 to $15 rental per acre, and make interest on personal capital in- 

 vested, 3"et the world-renowned English farmer (Mechi) says $100 

 to the acre, at least, is required. The more capital the more net 

 returns, seems to be his motto, and a good one. 



What is the value pei» acre of personal capital in Maine? I am 

 everywhere met with the objection that they, the farmers, have not 

 the capital to put in and can't get it. The trouble lies deeper — 

 neither you nor capital have faith in the outlay'. Millions of Maine 

 farmer's capital is in 3'our savings banks and elsewhere, 3'et these 

 farmers that loan, pursue the same system of farming, or a worse 

 one, than those do who borrow. Demonstrate to keen-e3'ed capital 

 that has seen your farms sell lower at each auction sale for a genera- 

 tion, that farming will pay six per ceut., as it will and more, on 



