AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. 169 



much it is within the bounds of physical possibility to make 

 it produce. Siiumonds, in his * Vegetable Kingdom, re 

 marks, with regard to the comparative productiveness of 

 crops of human food, that one hundred bushels of Indian 

 corn per acre is not an uncommon crop. One peck per 

 week will not only sustain life, but give a man strength to 

 labor, if the stomach is properly toned to the amount of 

 food. This, then, would feed one man four hundred weeks, 

 or almost eight years. * Four hundred bushels of potatoes 

 can also be raised upon an acre; this would be a bushel a 

 week for the same length of time, and the actual weight of 

 an acre of sweet potatoes is 21,344 pounds, which is not 

 considered an extraordinary crop. This would feed a man 

 (six pounds a day) for 3,557 days, or nine years and two- 

 thirds. To vary the diet, we will occasionally give rice, 

 which has been grown at the rate of ninety-three bushels 

 to the acre over an entire field. This, at forty-five pounds 

 to Uie bushel, would be 1,185 pounds; or, at twenty-eight 

 pounds to the bushel, when husked, 2,604 pounds ; which, 

 at two pounds a day, would feed a man 1,302 days, or more 

 than three and a-half years. &quot; 



&quot; Such considerations as these are full of consolation to 

 the aspiring, and of encouragement to the very poor. 

 None need despair, and moreover, none need be dishonest. 

 It is possible to accumulate capital, aye, to get the first 

 thousand dollars, from an income not exceeding the most 

 moderate earnings or wages. And let it be inscribed on the 

 lintel of every dwelling on the desks in every counting- 

 house on the pericardium of every heart It is better to 

 live on ten cents a day than to do a. wrong for the sake of 

 money. 



&quot; Again, the economy that leads to wealth implies a ju 

 dicious use and profitable investment of savings. A saving 

 of even a small sum will amount, it is true, within the 



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