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SILK MANUAL, AND 



here and be independent, they will go off. They 

 ought to go off. Now there is a great mistake 

 arrjoiig farmers, which lias a bearing on this point. 

 And that is, they covet too much land. Ahiiost all 

 our farms are probably from four to ten times too 

 large. A farmer never feels that he has got land 

 enough. He adds field to field, does not half sub- 

 due or manure what he has got, and still wants 

 more. One of the most productive and profitable 

 farms I ever saw, contained but fourteen acres. 

 It was every inch subdued, improved and ma- 

 nured ; and the owner is what we call a very 

 thrifty, if not a rich man, — while iiis neighbor, 

 who skims over three hundred acres, and works 

 full as hard, grows poor. By proper manage- 

 ment, I am satisfied, every acre of land which is 

 fit to raise corn upon, can he made to yield one 

 hundred bushels to the acre, is it not better to 

 put the manure and care and labor upon it, and 

 raise the one hundred bushels, than to spread the 

 same over four acres, and thus drive away three 

 of your sons to the west ? As long as farmers 

 feel that they must have so much land, they will 

 be in debt, will hate Life Insurance Offices, will 

 never see what the earth can be made to yield, 

 and never have New England filled up with a 

 great body of intelligent farmers. As things now 

 are, what is the process ? I will tell you. A man 

 owns one of our large farms. Jt is paid for. He 

 raises up a large family. The girls are married 

 off, and he gives each one her portion. He him- 

 self dies, and his farm falls to his five sons. One 

 of these five takes the farm, and agrees to pay the 

 other sons their shai-es. They go off to the west, 

 and return no more. He undertakes by economy 

 and industry to keep all the farm, and send four- 

 fifths of its value to the west. By and by, he finds 

 he cannot do it as fast as he agreed to do it. He 

 goes to the Life Insurance Company, or some- 

 where else, mortgages his farm, and starts anew 

 to pay for it. All Ids life he toils — pays inteiest 



— thinks the farmer has a very hard row to hoe, 



— and it is not till the close of his life that he 

 gets free from debt. When he dies, the same 

 process has to be gone over again, and thus, about 

 every generation, we send off four-fifths of our 

 sons to the west, and then send four-fifths of the 

 value of our lands after them. Now this is poor 

 policy ; and I sometimes wonder how it is that 

 our farms are in any condition that is tolerable ; 

 for their worth, many times over has been sent 

 away to the west. \f, instead of this, our farmers 

 would divide up their farms, and make every acre 

 yield all that it can be njade to yield, our towns 

 would not have that appearance of age and decay 

 which too many of them have. ' Praise a great 

 farm,' says the immortal poet of Rome, 'but cul- 

 tivate a little one.' I have noticed that men as 



they grow old, seem to want more and more land, 

 and seldom do you find a man who feels that he 

 has enough. I know they talk of the fertility of 

 the west, and the beautiful land to be found there. 

 And I know, too, that a young man going out 

 there, if he do not die under it, will in a few 

 years become thrifty. And why ? the process i» 

 easily described. He goes to the wilderness, pur- 

 chases his lanfl, lives in his log cabin, sleeps on 

 the floor or more iikely on the ground, eats upon 

 a 8!ab [)inned up into the logs, and eats what 

 comes to hand, wears what he can get, and so he 

 lives, working early and late, and it would be 

 wonderful indeed if he did not gain property. 

 And so would he here. Let a young man take 

 the i)oorest farm you can name, and labor on it as 

 hard, and live just as he does at the west, for fif- 

 teen years, and he will be ricdi here. It is not so 

 much the land that makes the difference, as it is 

 difference in the manner of living, between the 

 west and the east. 1 was struck while riding in 

 the sta.-e in listening to the conversation between 

 two farmers, the one from Illinois, and the other 

 from the state of Maine. The western man was 

 describing his country, and the fertility of the soil, 

 contrasting it with New England. ' Why how 

 much corn can you raise to an acre? ' says our 

 man from Maine. 'I can raise all of seventy 

 bushels with ajl ease.' ' And how much do you 

 get for it a bushel ?' ' Nine-pence a bushel at my 

 door.' ' Well,' says the Maine farmer, ' I can 

 raise three hundred bushels of jiotatoes on my 

 land, and get twenty cents a bushel at my dooi,' 

 'Aye, but you have to dig them.' ' j'rue, and 

 don't you pick and then shell your corn, and after 

 all get but twelve and a half cents, and only sev- 

 enty bushels on an acre ? ' I repeat, with the 

 same economy, and the same industry, a young 

 farmer here can get rich as easily as at the west. 

 Whether they will practice equal economy and 

 industry, is more than 1 can say. But let the 

 fashion once prevail of having smaller farms and 

 having them better cultivated, and you will be 

 surrounded by your own sons, instead of large 

 landholders, and a floating population who hire 

 themselves out to cultivate it, and who own no 

 land. 



Another reason why our young men go to the 

 west and leave us, is, that there is one period in 

 a farmer's life, which is a severe one for a Yan- 

 kee to bear. I allude to a certain period in every 

 farmer's life, who does not inherit property, when 

 there is a severe struggle between thrifliness and 

 poverty. Every farmer has known that there is 

 and njust be such a j)eriod and such a struggle. 

 Like a ship mounting up a high wave, every stick 

 of tiinber seems to groan and creak, and for a 

 moment, just as she is on the point of gaining 



