12 



pay their interest money, pay their taxes, defray their heavy ex- 

 penses of rearing and educating their famihes, and the demands of 

 society, and hquidate their debt and own their land in full, as thou- 

 sands of such have already done, and present indisputable proof 

 that farming pays. Back again, however, comes the objector, and 

 says : " How about that fifteen per cent. ; I don't find it ? " Well, 

 very likely you don't, but you ought to, and to be able to put your 

 hand upon and show it. You may depend upon it, my friend, that 

 fifteen per cent, "is laying around loose," somewhere, and you had 

 better ransack the nooks, crannies and by-ways of your business 

 until you bring it out to the light. There is a range in the per 

 cent, which farm lands will pay in different hands, management, 

 and under varying circumstances. I know of lands in this valley 

 which are paying all the expense of their cultivation and a hundred 

 per cent, on the capital ; and there are some which are he^.d, but 

 not farmed, and are so treated that Nature herself is foiled in her 

 attempts to produce crops which do not pay anything. In the lat- 

 ter case it is neither the fault of the land nor the business, but en- 

 tirely that of the owner, for there is but little land east of the 

 AUeghanies but what if left entirely to itself, without thought, care, 

 or oversight of the owner, would yield him six per cent, and taxes 

 by the growth of wood. These considerations lead to the settled 

 conviction that farming pays the individual in dollars and cents for 

 all the intelHgence and labor he gives it. Statistics (which I will 

 not take your time to quote) prove, conclusively, that of every hun- 

 dred persons who engage in trade, more than ninety fail. Bat of 

 persons who engage in farming, and do not meddle with outside 

 business, not one in a hundred is ever bankrupt ; and that a hun- 

 dred young men, taking farming as their business, will aggregate 

 more wealth than a hundred in any other business. With the 

 former the aggregate will be pretty evenly divided, each wiU have a 

 competence, but with the latter the aggregate of wealth will be 

 divided among a very few, and a great majority will obtain but a 

 bare livelihood. 



But dollars and cents, however desirable and useful, are not the 

 whole of life. There are some things desirable and useful, and 

 which mone}' cannot purchase, which are inherent in the farmer's 

 occupation, and a part of his reward, which should be taken into 

 the account. From his position, and the nature of his occupation, 

 he is exempt from the whirl of excitement and corroding cares of 



