380 State Board ok Agricultuke, &c. 



CAPITAL IN FARMING. 



BY E. R. TOWLE, OF FRANKLIN. 



One very great obstacle which farmers have is the want 

 of capital to enable them more successfully to prosecute 

 their calling. This want is wide spread, not confined to a 

 few individual cases, but applies pretty generally to the 

 occupation. There are but comparatively few farmers who 

 have a surplus fund, or, if they have, who are willing to use 

 it for the oenefit of the farm. A large proportion of far- 

 mers are in debt for their farms, to a greater or less extent, 

 and all their energies are directed to liquidating the claims 

 of former owners. This, of course, leaves very little or 

 nothing as a reserve fund for farming operations beyond 

 what is actually necessary to carry on the farm, and this, too, 

 often in an imperfect manner. 



Whatever the farmer can accomplish unaided, with the 

 imperfect or inadequate means at command, by way of 

 improvoment upon the farm, or in adopting a better system 

 of cultivation, is about all that is attempted, and anything 

 farther is put off until that longlooked-for time in the 

 future, when the debts are paid. 



During this interval, often of many years, the farmer's 

 own strong hands and those of his equally faithful wife, con- 

 stitute, to a great extent, the only available capital stocky 



