PROFITS OF FARMING. 41 



the income for milk to be forty dollars and ninety-five cents, 

 leaving a balance of sixteen dollars and twenty-five cents 

 against the farmer, to be made up by about two and one-half 

 cords of unmixed manure which a cow will furnish in a year. 

 Upon the same data, butter at twenty cents per pound will not 

 return so large an amount of money as milk at two and one-half 

 cents per quart, and I suppose the value of the skimmed milk 

 ■will not very much exceed the increased value of the labor 

 entailed upon the females of the farmer's household by the cares 

 of the dairy. How many farmers can tell with any thing like 

 reliable accuracy the expense of raising a calf during the first 

 year of its life ? Having for many years been accustomed to 

 rear my own cattle, I have gradually settled down upon a 

 system which experience has proved to result in the best growth 

 and condition, and I know that a good yearling can rarely be 

 afforded by the farmer, if he would secure a remunerating 

 profit, at a less sum than twenty-three dollars. Yet taking the 

 State through and including that nondescript variety which 

 furnishes the barns of the vast majority of farmers under the 

 title of native breeds, the average price of a yearling animal 

 will fall very far below its cost. If we turn our attention to 

 what are usually called permanent improvements, and mark the 

 tasteful dwellings, the expensive walls and the fields cleared of 

 rocks, it will too often be found that these have been only moths 

 to eat up the surplus money which hard toil and rigid economy 

 may have enabled the farmer to collect, and in the large majority 

 of cases add no remunerating value to the farm in the market, 

 but rarely fail to make tlioir mark upon the books of the 

 assessors, and thus make themselves pretty keenly felt in the 

 increasing tax bills. 



But if these avenues for draining off the profits which are so 

 conspicuous upon paper really exist ; if, indeed, the farmer toils 

 thus in the dark, is there no process by which the profit may be 

 realized in the tangible form of a banker's account, and invest- 

 ments in paying stocks ? It is not to be supposed that under 

 any circumstances, the farmers of New England can realize the 

 princely fortunes which sometimes fall to the lot of the merchant 

 in the city; nor, on the other hand, if he possesses ordinary 

 industry and business talent, is he liable to fall into beggary as 

 suddenly as the same merchant may do ; but I believe that no 



