312 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



how their work ought to be done, that did not result 

 in disaster. It is very well to know what Science 

 teaches with regard to farming; but no man was 

 ever a thoroughly good farmer who had not spent 

 some years in actual contact with the soil. 



5. While every one says of his neighbor, "He 

 farms too much land," the greed of acquisition does 

 not seem at all chastened. Men stagger under loads 

 of debt to-day, who might relieve themselves by 

 selling off so much of their land as they cannot 

 profitably use ; but every one seems intent on hold- 

 ing all he can, as if in expectation of a great advance 

 in its market value. And yet you can buy farms in 

 every old State in the Union as cheaply per acre as 

 they could have been bought in like condition sixty 

 years ago; and I doubt their selling higher sixty 

 years hence than they do now. No doubt, there are 

 lands, in the vicinage of growing cities or villages, 

 that have greatly advanced in value ; but these are 

 exceptions : and I counsel every young farmer, every 

 poor farmer, to buy no more land than he can culti- 

 vate thoroughly, save such as he needs for timber. 

 Never fear that there will not be more land for sale 

 when you shall have the money wherewith to buy it ; 

 but shun debt as you would the plague, and prefer 

 forty acres all your own to a square mile heavily 

 mortgaged. I never lifted a mill-stone ; but I have 

 undertaken to carry debts, and they are fearfully 

 heavy. 



6. I know that most American farms east of the 



