105 



filling a gap, then, by increasing the ranks of these struggling mem- 

 bers of two honorable professions, and you will have to be as sharp 

 and smooth as a needle to wedge your way into a firm place. 



"There are the avenues of trade," you will say; "surely, they are 

 available." Certainly they are, and in no place are they more available 

 than exactly where you live. As a matter of course, every farmer is 

 interested in the markets, and the chances of a good or bad trade 

 year. What better business can there be than that of the agricul- 

 turist? It strikes me that it is just as honorable and just as respon- 

 sible to be a producer as it is to be a buyer of wheat; to be a wine 

 maker as a wine merchant; to be a fruit grower as a fruit dealer; to 

 keep a dairy ranch as to be a butter-man. You have energy and 

 tact. Well, so much the better; they are qualities that do not waste 

 their sweetnees on the rancho's air. No farmer has ever been ruined 

 because he happened to be a cute hand at a bargain, whilst, as to the 

 respectability of the two positions, do you not know that glad as you 

 are to welcome and entertain the city merchant who visits you, he is 

 no less anxious to show his esteem of the supplier. I tell you, boys, 

 we city folk have a habit of looking on you young farmers as the solid 

 men of the State. Let me tell you, too, the difference between making 

 a fortune in the counting-house and one in the field. The first is 

 won at greater wear and tear of the brain and body, and goes the 

 more quickly. 



Fortune lies in the furrow, and having put your hand to the plow, 

 do not turn back and look longingly at the city's smoke, or the chances 

 are that you will, like those who toil there, come to grief on your 

 shares. 



Fortune lies in the furrow; only here the furrows lie on our com- 

 mon mother's face, whilst back there they are deeply marked on the 

 face of the tired money-getter. 



Fortune lies in the furrow. Aye, and health lies there, too. With 

 the great blessing of independence, and that greater one of a sound 

 body, what can you wish for more? Ask the anxious, prematurely 

 aged millionaire which he values most, his present bank account, or 

 his past good digestion? 



Fortune lies in the furrow, and though there maybe an occasional 

 bad season, bankrupt farmers are as rare as the four-leaved clover. 



I know there is the probability of this advice being taken in much 

 the same spirit that the stage-struck youth takes the advice of the 

 honest manager who tries to dissuade him from making his "first 

 appearance on any stage." At any rate, the advice is well meant, and 

 it is not with good advice that a certain place is paved. 



Understand me well, please. I would not have you imagine that I 

 am in favor of belittling your sphere of labor; to the contrary, I 

 should be, if I drew flattering pictures of city life, and so induced 

 you to become a unit in a struggling crowd. The country is great 

 and free, and there is room in it for you to reach out and stretch to 

 your heart's content. Besides, there is the chance of your doing so 

 much better. Instead of making one of a town, you can make a 

 town. How often has it happened in this new country of ours that a 

 farm-place is found to be a good central point of an agricultural dis- 

 trict, warehouses are built, it becomes the polling place of a precinct, 

 the railway flings down a branch line to tow it along, incorporation 

 takes place, and Farmer Coulter is made Mayor of Coulterville. 

 14 a 



