36 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



A HOME IN THE COUNTRY. 



We copy the following from the Country Gen- 

 tleman. It contains so much sound, common 

 sense, tliat we wish every business man of the city 

 to read it : 



Ilandreds of good-hearted men are toiling se- 

 ■ verely in our large cities, wearing out their bo- 

 dies and brains in the hopeless endeavor to acquire 

 what is called "a fortune," upon the interest of 

 which they may support their families and them- 

 selves ia the decline of life. Their families are 

 already expensive, and, amidst the vicissitudes of 

 trade and business, how rarely is the wished-for 

 happinees accomplished. It costs from $800 to 

 §1,200 per year to support a family of five or six 

 children, in genteel position, in a city, and it 

 would require at least $20,000 of positive cash to 

 do this without the aid of a business income. To 

 support the family, then, and lay b}' enough to 

 form a moderate fortune, within the number of 

 years that a mac may reasonably count upon be- 

 lag successful in business, is evidently a hercule- 

 an task, ae times go. I know many men, in a 

 good business position, with $10,000 worth of 

 atock on hand in their Etores, a good credit, and 

 very free bank accommodations, who cannot sup- 

 port their families in the manner described, for 

 three years in succession, and find themselves .$500 

 better off at the end of that period. They have 

 first a good year, and make $1,500 or $2,000, and 

 then a bad year, and lose two-thirds of former 

 accumulations. And so it goes. They are ab- 

 sorbed in business, they find no time for study or 

 relaxation, the mind becomes fallow, and the body 

 loses its vital spirit, and^isease and misanthropy 

 follow. 



■ Now, to such persons I wish to suggest a means 

 of becoming independent in a very few years — 

 that happy result which teazes and puzzles the 

 brains of so many ambitious mortals. We will 

 say that you are in successful business and can 

 possibly save $500 per 3'ear, or some years at 

 least. Do this, and get together $2,200 ; take 

 $200 of this, or less, according to your age, and 

 get an insurance upon your life for $5,000, for 

 the benefit of your wife and children. Make it a 

 perpetual insurance, so that your policy shall not 

 run out, and the premium be raised ; pay the first 

 year down. Then look about you, and find a 

 small farm, near the city where you reside, worth, 

 say $4,000 or $5,000. Let it be on a river or 

 railroad, easily accessible from town, in about an 

 hour's ride, without a horse and carriage. I'ay 

 down $2,000 and give a mortgage for the bal- 

 ance; let the place l)e varied in the character of 

 its soil, and as pleasant and attractive as possible ; 

 let there be plenty of good water, and a little 

 stream if possible ; a small pond, and a grovo of 

 shade trees and other natural advantages and nat- 

 ural beauties, if such can be found. If there are 

 fruit trees, Ftrawberry beds, &c., upon the place, 

 80 much the Ixjtter ; if not, let the cheapness of 

 the land and its undeveloped natural advantages 

 decide you ; send your family to this place (pro- 

 vided, always, your wife takes a fancy to go) ; hire 

 a gardener and farmer wlio understands his busi- 

 ness, andjpay him two-thirds the ordinary salary, 

 with the addition of five per cent, of all the cash 

 proceeds of the place he can obtain, by sending 



to market the produce of the place, in order to 

 make him work and contrive bow he can best and 

 quickest make a fair salary. Keep horses, cows, 

 hens, ducks, pigs ; raise a groat variety of vege- 

 tables ; have an ice house, if you can get ice ; and 

 now let us see where you are. Are you not inde- 

 pendent ? 



Milk, eggs, butter, and fresh, sweet vegetables 

 are luxuries in town — and these you will have in 

 abundance at the first cost of raising them, for 

 you pay your farmer no five per cent, on these. 

 Your family can have a hoise and carriage to lide 

 with — a luxury you seldom dare to indulge in 

 when in town. Your house-rent is cheap, and if 

 the farm does not pay in $400 per year, you still 

 will have $400 or $500 left of your ordinary ex- 

 penditures for living to lay by, or pay off the 

 mortgage, or improve the farm. If you have no 

 fruit on the farm, you may have plenty of it by 

 planting trees, in three or four years ; apples, 

 pears, peaches, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, 

 ifec, enough to eat freely, and to sell to profit — 

 l^our family get fresh air, pure water, plenty of 

 exercise, and live in a simple and unexpensive 

 manner, free from many of the evils of a groat 

 city. You may combine with this the advanta- 

 ges of good schools, churches, and pleasant soi'ie- 

 ty ; and may let your fam,ily go to town often 

 enough to keep the city polish from wearing en- 

 tirely off. As for yourself, the pleasure of visit- 

 ing your place two or three times a week, or of- 

 tener if convenient, and spending the Sabbath in 

 the country, will more than repay you for the 

 inconveniences of even a partial separation from 

 your family, should that be necessary. Y"ou will 

 have little trouble about the working of ycur 

 place if you give your farmer a per centage on 

 sales, for I have tried the plan and know how it 

 works. Only remember this — get a good man, 

 and one who thoroughly understands his business. 



Now where are you ? Are you not independ- 

 ent? If you die, and keep up the life insurance 

 (which will cost you less than $100 per year), 

 you will leave your fixmily $5,000 in cash and 

 the farm, to say nothing of your business. If you 

 put all your fruit and best improvements on cue 

 side, or one-half of your farm, your heirs can fell 

 off one-half tlie farm and pay tlie mortgage if it 

 is not paid, and have the best half of the farm, 

 and all the cash left. If you have no sons, smd 

 your wife is not skilled in business, that would 

 be the better plan. Then, with a neat house and 

 a good garden, plenty of fruit, a cow, a pig, 

 poultry, a hoi'se and carriage, and the income of 

 $5,000, how comfortably the family could live, 

 at home, as long as they should survive. And all 

 this can be done for $2,000 to $2,200. There 

 are a hundred other suggestions which rise to my 

 mind, in connection with tliis pulijcct, but I will 

 not wTite them out now. They will occur to ev- 

 ery reader. 



Why, then, toiler in the city, wait, till you ac- 

 juire a fortune of $20,000 ur $5(>,(!U0 IteCoreyou 

 resolve to become independent and make your 

 family so? Why not look out ftir a home in the 

 country and make yourself independent, with 

 ,$2,00t(, as soon as post'ible. 1 know of no other 

 way that you can do it so easily and so certainly. 

 It is a great deal better than going to California 

 in search of gold. 



