MisTAKKS OF Farmers. 421 



Airain — it is a sad mistake to run in debt for so nmch 

 land. 1 do not refer now to tliose wlio, from small bei^in- 

 nings or otherwise, liave come to a competency, and prefer 

 to invest their accumulations in real estate rather than in 

 other directions, but to those who, Avithout sufficient means, 

 take upon themselves burdens which they are not able to 

 bear, and which will only prove ruinous. I mean those 

 who are afflicted, in this respect, with what some one calls, 

 almost profanely, " damphool on the brain." They have a 

 mania for buying land, and, as a noted man once said, " if 

 a person owned the whole world, he would still want a 

 piece outside of it for a potato patch." So these add field 

 to field. To meet their oft, and inevitably recurring pay- 

 ments, they strip the land of its forests and the meadows 

 of their fertility, spend toilsome days and sleepless nights, 

 deprive themselves of ease and comfort — sacrificing the 

 life, perhaps, of the faithful wife, and their own happi- 

 ness — for wliat ? The poor compensation of paying heavy 

 taxes on land they really do not own, and a large amount 

 of interest on what they owe. It is estimated that farms 

 are now paying not more than three or four per cent, on 

 the capital invested. 



If this view is correct, the goal of solvency must be far 

 diitantjby the ordinary operations of the farm, to those who 

 are largely in debt. The prospect, to a sober judgment, 

 can hardly be enchanting. The evils this practice brings 

 to individuals and families in the greater temptations to be 

 dishonest, and the fraud it induces, the intolerable burden 

 of care and toil it imposes, and the consequent premature 

 senility -and loss of life it brings, and when generally 



