Fortunes for Farmers 



It is impossible to say how far the present move- 

 ment may reach. If our farmers specialize, the 

 countryside will approximate to that of France 

 and Belgium, and if more capital and scientific 

 knowledge were applied there is no reason why 

 agriculture should not flourish increasingly. It 

 is a question of how quickly we can adapt our- 

 selves to changing conditions. 



There is no better life than a farmer's despite 

 croakers, no finer opening for a young man, 

 and no more agreeable existence for his declining 

 years. Professional and business men can train 

 one son up in their own following, to succeed, 

 them, but rarely more, and the others must 

 be placed in something unknown and trouble- 

 some, where the father's experience is of little 

 avail. The farmer, however, can in his own life- 

 time float all his sons in separate farms, and leave 

 them with a good chance of success. He can 

 place them in farms, lend them stock and imple- 

 ments, extend over them the wing of his credit 

 and experience, giving them, one by one, an 

 opportunity unrivalled in a city, in similar 

 financial circumstances. 



How many professional or business men can 

 look on three or four sons, all married, all indepen- 

 dent of his (the father's) death, and all perhaps 

 under thirty years of age. Yet numberless farmers 



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