DOES FARMING PAY? 31 



is desirable it pays, for though you might blot out either of 

 our other great industries without fatal results, yet if agri- 

 culture were extinguished the nation itself would die. 



We pass now to our second consideration : Does farming 

 pay those who are engaged in the occupation ? And here I 

 admit, at the outset, that there are some men whom farm- 

 ing does not pay. Neither would any other occupation, pur- 

 suit or profession. Some men are so constituted that every- 

 thing they touch turns to poverty and leanness. They might 

 dig in the richest placers of California or Nevada, or the most 

 marvellous diamond deposit of Golconda, and yet they would 

 be poor. Then there are others who set such a priceless 

 value on all their efforts, both mental and physical, that 

 hardly any compensation reaches their standard of deserved 

 return. Others look at this matter from an artificial or ficti- 

 tious stand-point, and of course come to very erroneous conclu- 

 sions. They notice that some individuals become suddenly 

 wealthy in other business, or without business, and jump to 

 the conclusion, without analyzing the case, that that is the 

 thing which pays, while their own business does not. Some 

 have an insatiable longing for wealth, but are utterly averse 

 to the labor, care, responsibility and frugality absolutely 

 necessary to acquire it honestly. They are after some busi- 

 ness that pays, and are not over-anxious to know that its 

 prosecution is advantageous to the community. Now the 

 honest truth is, that none of these classes will find farming a 

 paying business, unless their views are materially modified; 

 and they had better not engage in it. The latter class, not 

 being able to appreciate the fact that no business pays except 

 that in which honest labor creates a value, might as well 

 make a clean breast of it, and plunge into some wild scheme 

 of speculation, where, having nothing to risk and nothing to 

 lose, there maybe one chance in ten thousand to win; or 

 better yet, engage in manufacturing money on their own 

 account, or by a single night's stealthy toil, get possession of 

 some ^reat deposit of bank-notes and government bonds, 

 Avhich would decide the question of what pays. On the other 

 hand, there are men of whose schemes, plans and forecast we 

 can know but little, but of Avhom it appears that everything 

 they touch, and much which they do not touch, is turned 



