34 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



the crops. Later he assisted in the cultivation of a neigh- 

 boring farm, and so efficient did he prove that the whole county 

 soon learned of his presence. He made a hand in the corn- 

 pulling and the cotton-picking, and later found work with a 

 ginner. During his first year he had been looked upon with 

 some suspicion, but so scrupulously had he conducted himself, 

 and so industrious and intelligent had he shown himself, that 

 this feeling in regard to him was gradually disarmed. He ap- 

 plied for the position of teacher in the district school and got 

 it. The term lasted six weeks, and he was three months in col- 

 lecting his pay. He married the daughter of the best edu- 

 cated man in the county, a preacher, and, with his young wife, 

 he settled upon a run-down rented farm. To-day he owns a 

 hundred and forty acres of fertile land without a dollar of in- 

 debtedness, and is looked upon as one of the most prosper- 

 ous and respected men in his section of the state. 



These results may doubtless be duplicated, but only by the 

 same factors of character, industry and intelligence. If a 

 young man begin his married life without other means than 

 those with which nature has endowed himself and his help- 

 meet a good, clear mind and muscular arms he must expect 

 years of struggle, of frugality, of resolute, persistent industry 

 before he can find an assured and ample income, seasons of 

 ease and the surroundings of comparative luxury. On the 

 farm much of the work is rugged and some of it repulsive. 

 He will see other men no brighter, no more able than he 

 merchants, manufacturers, professional men, making money 

 with apparent rapidity and ease while his savings are meagre 

 and hard earned. He must be moved by none of these things. 

 He is not striving for another's success, but for his own. 



And there will, of course, be failures. The incompetent, the 



