SUMMING UP. 311 



to choose once for all. Roaming from State to State, 

 from section to section, is a sad and far too common 

 mistake. Not merely is it true that " The rolling 

 stone gathers no moss," but the farmer who wanders 

 from place to place never acquires that intimate 

 knowledge of soil and climate which is essential to 

 excellence in his vocation. He cannot read the 

 clouds and learn when to expect rain, when he may 

 look for days of sunshine, as he could if he had lived 

 twenty years on the same place. Choose your home 

 in the East, the South, the Center, the West, if you 

 will (and each section has its peculiar advantages) ; 

 but choose once for all, and, having chosen, regard 

 that choice as final. 



4. Our young men are apt to plunge into responsi- 

 bilities too hastily. They buy farms while they lack 

 at once experience and means, incur losses and debts 

 by consequent miscalculations, and drag through life 

 a weary load, which sours them against their pursuit, 

 when the fault is entirely their own. No youth 

 should undertake to manage a farm until after several 

 years of training for that task under the eye of a 

 capable master of the art of tilling the soil. If he 

 has enjoyed the requisite advantages on his father's 

 homestead, he may possibly be qualified to manage 

 a farm at twenty-one ; but there are few who might 

 not profitably wait and learn, in the pay of some suc- 

 cessful cultivator, for several years longer ; while I 

 cannot recall an instance of a youth rushing out of 

 school or a city counting-house to show old farmers 



