8 The Farmstead 



There are certain men here and there who have 

 great executive ability, who see the strategic 

 points and take advantage of them, who can 

 make a success of farming the same as they 

 would at the making of shoes, or harnesses, or 

 buttons, or anything else. But as a general 

 thing, the farmer should be taught that the 

 farm is not the place to become wealthy. I do 

 not believe it is. Certainly I should not go on 

 the farm with that idea in view. But if I 

 wanted to live a happy life, if I wanted to have 

 at my command independence and the comforts 

 of living, I do not know where I could better 

 find them than on the farm ; for those very 

 things which appeal to an educated taste are 

 the things which the farmer does not have to 

 buy, — they are the things which are his already." 

 The wealthy few of the cities give voice to 

 the thought that the farming classes in the 

 United States are always on the verge of pov- 

 erty, yet in the last century they have rescued 

 from barbarism and solitude nearly all of the 

 arable land of the two billion acres of which 

 the United States are composed. More than 

 four million five hundred thousand farm homes 

 have been planted, valued at more than thirteen 

 billion dollars. Much hue and cry has been 

 raised of late about farm mortgages. If the 

 facts were known, it is more than probable that 



