340 HOW TO GET A FAKM, 



lay up something for those rainy days which are 

 sure to fall to the lot of many of us in our journey 

 through life. 



It is not high-priced labor, nor unpropitious sea 

 sons, nor because produce brings a low price, that 

 makes farming unprofitable. Every laborer is 

 worthy of his hire ; the harvests are bountiful ; con 

 sumers are increasing so rapidly as to keep provis 

 ions up to prices that ought to be satisfactory to 

 producers ; yet the question as to why farming is 

 unprofitable continues to be asked. It is just as 

 regularly answered, but does not seem to stay so. 



Instances are continually reported of men who 

 have maintained families on the product of ten, fif 

 teen, or twenty acres of land, which, when they be 

 gan, was no better than the average. They have 

 lived respectably, given their children a good edu 

 cation, and saved money. Ireland contains forty 

 thousand farmers who occupy spots ranging from 

 only one to two acres each. In France the subdi 

 vision of land into small parcels is equally exten 

 sive. Yet the occupants all live, and regard the 

 being dispossessed of their small holdings as the 

 misfortune of their lives. Why, then, cannot Amer 

 icans who own two hundred or a thousand acres, 

 make farming profitable ? There is a controlling 

 reason which has been repeatedly set forth they 

 plant too much, spreading their limited quantity of 

 manure over too large a surface, thus impoverish 

 ing the land and wasting their labor. Eighty 

 bushels of corn, and other grains in proportion, may 

 be raised on one acre of land much easier than on 



