220 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



The question, however, of special or mixed farming is one that 

 will be decided by each, somewhat according to his own ambition 

 for accumulation. A specialist in the extreme may sacrifice the 

 best part of a generous farm life in the pursuit of his specialty, be 

 it hens, hogs, hops, or tobacco, and may hardly be able to talk or 

 think of anything outside of the specialty he is pursuing. How- 

 ever much wealth may contribute towards one's success, the high- 

 est success is not to be measured by money alone. 



The farmer who lives for his farm is in danger of living an 

 unprofitable life. He is in danger of becoming one of those whom 

 Thoreau alluded to when he said: "I am wont to think that men 

 are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of 

 men, the former are so much the freer. I see young men, my 

 townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, 

 barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired 

 than got rid of. They have got to live a man's life pushing all 

 these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How 

 many a poor immortal soul I have met well-nigh crushed and 

 smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing 

 before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never 

 cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, 

 and wood-lot." 



If that is the condition of a man who lives for his farm, what 

 must be the condition of the wives and children of such farmers? 



It is from such homes that the largest draft is being continually 

 made for keeping up the supply of young men and young women 

 in our villages and cities. 



Now, if carrying on a farm means carrying it as a burden upon 

 one's shoulders, then the sooner we all quit and move to the city the 

 better it may be for us. But I am not yet quite ready to believe it a 

 part of the plan of creation to make man secondary to the land he 

 tills. And so, while I am in favor of giving special attention to 

 one or more branches as leading industries on the farm, and to 

 pushing them to a profitable degree, I am also in favor of making 

 the farm, which usually must be the farmer's home, just as good 

 and just as pleasant a home as it is possible to make it. We should 

 endeavor to make our homes such homes as thousands of mechan- 

 ics and business men are daily dreaming about and hoping for, 

 and such a home calls for a good deal of mixed farming. It can 

 not be asking too much of a farmer to ask him to have a good 



