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such, may pay well. But analogous expedients will not 

 increase the showers or sunshine, or the crops of a farm. 



Our gentleman-farmer may also overlook the fact that 

 actual improvements, whether in the quality of the land 

 itself, by manures, drainage, or extra cultivation, or in 

 the fences, buildings, implements, and farming conven- 

 iences generally, are of the nature of permanent invest- 

 ments, which may add to the intrinsic valne of the farm 

 without immediately increasing its profits. If so-called 

 improvements do not add to the intrinsic value of the 

 farm, they surely should not be set down in the account 

 against it. For it is not answerable for the mistakes of 

 its proprietor. If a gentleman puts up shooting-boxes, 

 boat-houses, kiosks, fancy barns, massive walls, with ex- 

 tensive conservatories and flower gardens on his place, 

 and indulges in fancy horses and shoAvy equipages ; 

 these must be regarded as so many expenditures for per- 

 sonal gratification ; and ought no more to be included in 

 the outlay for which the farm should yield returns, than 

 the amounts which are expended for pictures to be hung 

 in the parlor, and for concert tickets, or in visiting 

 Saratoga, the White Mountains, and the sea-side, should 

 be reckoned as capital invested in business, on which the 

 ledger must show a fair balance of profits. 



Moreover (and none know it better than do our busi- 

 ness men), the amount of returns justly to be expected 

 from an investment, depends somewhat on the safety of 

 the latter ; if it be perfectly secure, the income may very 

 properly be much smaller than where there is more or 

 less risk. But if this principle be applied to the matter 

 of farming, it will follow that the profits derived from it 

 ought to be smaller than those of most other forms of 

 business in which capital is employed. Nothing can be 



