46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



well of your improvements ; but how much money have you 

 made ? " This question I was neither prepared nor inclined 

 to answer. But, without waiting for an answer, he added, 

 " You will never make any money until you do less work with 

 your hands, and more with your brains" and assured me that 

 it was a poor farm that would not support one gentleman. 

 Here the conversation ended, but not so the impression it 

 made on my mind. 



This brief interview turned the whole current of my 

 thoughts into a new channel, and resulted in changing the 

 whole programme of my farming operations. I was not long 

 in deciding that I would do something ; but what that some- 

 thing was to be I had not the remotest idea, only it should 

 be something different from what I had been doing, and 

 something that had some money in it. The idea of being 

 a gentleman-farmer, of using one's brains instead of his 

 hands, and of making some money at that, struck me as being 

 a decided improvement on the old style of farming, while 

 at the same time it acted as a constant and powerful stimu- 

 lant in all my endeavors to substitute brain-work for hand- 

 labor, and increase my income by the operation. But then 

 came the all-important questions, What shall I do ? and how 

 shall it be done? I pondered these questions for anxious 

 days and sleepless nights, and came to the conclusion that 

 I must make a specialty of some particular crop. This 

 being settled, the next point to be determined was, what that 

 crop should be. This I found was no easy matter to decide 

 in my own mind. A variety of schemes presented them- 

 selves, were examined and rejected. 



My first thought was, that I would give my attention to 

 the growing of onion-seed. This project was backed up by 

 the fact that I remembered having seen a man drive up to 

 Quincy Market in an open buggy, and take out three hun- 

 dred pounds of onion-seed for which he received twelve hun- 

 dred dollars. It occurred to me that he was a gentleman- 

 farmer, and was evidently making money. But from what 

 I learned about this business on inquiry, together with the 

 fact that at that time I did not own a buggy, I was induced 

 to abandon the project. Then I thought of going into hops, 

 sage, and tobacco, and many other things, while I was met 

 by what seemed insuperable objections lying in the way of 



