46 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



when it leads them to a farm — to a daily round of toil varied from year to year 

 hut by the addition of new cares as the young farmer gradually toughens to his 

 work, and the whole heiug perfects itself into a machine ! Yes, combined sew- 

 ing, knitting, washing, and baking machine. The mind to live and thrive 

 needs food as surely as does the body, and just as the stomach requires food of 

 various kinds, so are books and papers alone insufficient to satisfy the mind. 

 We must have intercourse with our fellows; and of this our present style of 

 farm life gives us, and especially our womankind, far too little. 



But what is to be done? Could our farms but be placed as the leaves of a book 

 the answer would be simple ; but though the perpendicular character of some re- 

 gions gives us a suggestion of what might be accomplished by the plan of having 

 a "good deal of land to the acre," I am inclined to think that the same amount 

 of energy that would be needed to make passable roads in such a case, would go 

 far towards a solution of the difficulty in more level countries, by perfecting 

 the road surfaces and thus making all distances more easily traversed. How 

 shall we avoid growing poor in social pleasures as we grow rich in acres? My 

 first answer, if I may be excused the bull, would be not to grow so rich in acres. 

 Too many of us are playing the part of land speculator to the detriment of our 

 interests as farmers. Let us beware lest in trying to swim two planks we sink 

 between them. How many of us are paying taxes upon working roads, and 

 building and maintaining fences for more land than we can cultivate to the 

 best advantage? If we argue that we hope at some time to extend our opera- 

 tions and to need more land, that land is now cheap and will then, be dear ; 

 as far as this one argument goes, our act is the sheerest speculation ; and inas- 

 much as there is almost no likelihood that our farming land will rise in value 

 as rapidly as would well selected town lots, we are making our speculation with 

 very poor judgment. We all object to having land near us held by non-resi- 

 dents, yet are we not placing in precisely that position all land that we hold 

 over and above our ability thoroughly to improve? But suppose that we have 

 no more than we use, is it yet certain that no part of our farm is acting as a 

 dead weight, contributing nothing to our prosperity, but rather serving to drag 

 us down? 



You all remember the Great Eastern and the seemingly insignificant little 

 Monitor, and the difference in their usefulness. Many a farm has been divided 

 or wholly lost by a mortgage given for the purpose of adding to it. Of course 

 more land was greatly needed. The cattle were suffering from restricted past- 

 ure and the wood lot was nearly exhausted. But the practice of a little more 

 hook farming would serve a better purpose than the mortgage-bought addi- 

 tional land. A partial use in as far as circumstances allow of the principals of 

 cattle soiling would greatly reduce the area needed to support our stock, and 

 our wood lots might be much smaller and never be used up if more wisely 

 arranged. As an illustration of the non-mortgage plan let me mention the 

 case of one of the most successful of our Michigan farmers who be^an with 1G0 

 acres ; but needing ready money to cultivate more thoroughly, he sold a forty 

 and put the proceeds entirely upon what remained. The results were so satis- 

 factory that he repeated the operation, this time, however, halving his farm 

 and leaving but GO acres. Finally he sold '.'<) more and now finds the remain- 

 ing 40 much the most profitable farm that he ever possessed. As regards the 

 consideration in hand, halving the size of our farms doubles the number of 

 neighbors within reach. It is true that diminishing the size of our farms neces- 

 sitates raising the quality of our farming, but "high farming"' is like free 



