FARMING IN NEW ENGLAND. 81 



market. If, in view of these considerations, any single crop 

 is, in his jndgment, more reliable and profitable than all others, 

 he may wisely make its cultivation his special business. But 

 he need not forget that, to the extent of his own necessary 

 consumption, any other crop he may raise will be marketed 

 without expense, and paid for without loss, as soon as it is 

 harvested. Neither should he lose siijlit of the foct that the 

 repeated raising of the same crop upon the same land may 

 not prove good husbandry in the long run. 



And any crop may foil in some seasons and under some cir- 

 cumstances. What was true of turnips and cranberries last 

 year, and partially true of grapes and strawberries the present 

 year, is liable, at some time, to prove true of any other crop. 

 Because one farmer has realized a large profit from a fortunate 

 venture in squashes, or another from a mammoth crop of cab- 

 bages, it does not follow that all may safely raise squashes 

 only or ca1)bages, regardless of the possibility that the borer 

 may destroy the one, or some species of fly or aphis the other. 

 The experience of scores of years has resulted in a very general 

 belief, if not conviction, that, in a region where an untimely 

 frost, the prevalence of rot, the development of some anoma- 

 lous form of insect life, a mile-wido opening in a summer cloud, 

 whereby the needed moisture fails, may make all the differ- 

 ence between an abundant and a meagre harvest, it is not wise 

 for a ftirmer to risk his whole chance of success upon a single 

 venture. 



I have said that the advocacy of special farming is fashion- 

 able. But this fashion is apparently giving place to another, 

 which is, like most other fashions, absurd, and, like some 

 others, pernicious. I mean that of characterizing all farming 

 in Plymouth County as "played out" and profitless. If this 

 fashionable cant means that in this county men cannot grow 

 rich by farming, it is a part of the truth, the counterpart 

 being that farmers never did, and never could, accumulate 

 large fortunes, measured by any standard now recognized. 

 The reputable modes of acquiring wealth (excluding inherit- 

 ance and mere chance, neither of which can be properly termed 

 acquisition), although many in number, are all based upon a 

 few general principles which underlie the economy of business 

 relations. 



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