THE FARMER'S CALLING. 185 



embark in trade, a careful observer reports that 

 ninety-five fail; and, while I think this proportion 

 too large, I am sure that a large majority do, and 

 must fail, because competition is so eager and traffic 

 so enormously overdone. If ten men endeavor to 

 support their families by merchandise in a township 

 which affords adequate business for but three, it is 

 certain that a majority must fail, no matter how 

 judicious their management or how frugal their liv- 

 ing. But you may double the number of farmers in 

 any agricultural county I ever traversed, without 

 necessarily dooming one to failure, or even abridging 

 his gains. If half the traders and professional men in 

 this country were to betake themselves to farming to- 

 morrow, they would not render that pursuit one 

 whit less profitable, while they would largely increase 

 the comfort and wealth of the entire community ; 

 and, while a good merchant, lawyer, or doctor, may 

 be starved out of any township, simply because the 

 work he could do-well is already confided to others, I 

 never yet heard of a temperate, industrious, intelli- 

 gent, frugal, and energetic farmer who failed to make 

 a living, or who, unless prostrated by disease or dis- 

 abled by casualty, was precluded from securing a 

 modest independence before age and decrepitude di- 

 vested him of the ability to labor. 



II. I regard farming as that vocation which con- 

 duces most directly and palpably to a reverence for 

 Honesty and Truth. The young lawyer is often con- 

 strained, or at least tempted, by his necessities, to do 



