132 HOW TO GET A FARM, 



cost of reclaiming it. This, all told, amounted to 

 $21 an acre, but not including the young owner s- 

 time. I make no account of that, because he has 

 liis pay in the increased value of the land. The 

 actual money-cost was more than $21 an acre, but 

 the total stands at that figure by deducting sales of 

 wood and faggots. 



There are tracts of swamp land which contain 

 three times the quantity of timber that this did, 

 which can be purchased quite as cheaply, and which, 

 from the greater quantity of wood they might yield, 

 could be reclaimed to better profit. There are 

 others, wholly clear of wood and underbrush, which 

 could be reclaimed for even less. It should be the 

 business of the shrewd and enterprising to seek out 

 and appropriate them. 



The first cost of this swamp was $20 per acre, the 

 reclaiming of it $21, making a total of $41, or 

 $1066 for the whole. Its value rose in two years to 

 $3120, or very nearly treble the first outlay. Here 

 was a large capital suddenly created out of a small 

 one, not by mere investment of the original sum, 

 but by bringing to its aid the experience of one 

 man and the courageous industry of another. It 

 was the judicious combination of the three upon a 

 specific object, thaf worked the change. Thus, the 

 man who improves his own land, works with a long 

 lever, and will find that, in reality, but little power 

 is required. The lesson should be as instructive to 

 those who read this, as was the reclaiming of the 

 swamp referred to to the neighborhood wherein it 

 lay. The owner s success was so decided, that it 



