make the butter. Farmers' help, including the " cost of board," act- 

 ually costs double what it used to, which is right enough, the laborer 

 being worthy of his hire, but when the farm produce is to be sold, it is 

 found that its price is not " enhanced in the same ratio." Farmers do 

 not get enough for their productions. There is not a craft, trade, or 

 profession, followed with the same diligence and earnestness that the 

 farmer shows, which does not pay better than farming. It is a question 

 often asked, why do our young men forsake the " noble art of farming " 

 to seek the cities, embrace trades, and speculations ? The answer is 

 easily and forever made — because almost every other pursuit on earth 

 PAYS better. We hear of multitudes of men who began life with 

 nothing, and by following manufactures, or trades, or professions, or by 

 taking fortunate advantage of the necessities of the times, died mag- 

 nificent millionaires ; but how often do we hear of a farmer, beginning 

 life the same way, or with even what is called a good start, making any 

 such opulent demise ? The whims of the world pay better than its 

 necessities. The introduction of machinery, in farm operations, though 

 of much help, has not accomplished the desired result of making the_ 

 farmer independent enough to dictate to the world the price of its every 

 day necessities. He creates no prices. If neighbor Smith takes his 

 butter and eggs to the store, he takes what the dealer chooses to give 

 in store pay at prices the dealer chooses to ask. Farmer Smith was a 

 cipher when he fetched his eggs and went home with his sugar and $2 

 a pound bohea. Farming is something more than selling eggs and 

 carrying home store pay, but the same parallel of marked dependence 

 runs, more or less, through all its transactions, not excepting the social. 

 It is a kind imposture to talk of the noble art of farming, its attendant 

 advantages and independence, but the able Secretary of Agriculture 

 casts its fortunes in much more moderate language. It is also certain 

 imposture to accept the tabular statements that many men make of the 

 extraordinary profits arising from the cultivation of. certain favorite 

 fields to which they have devoted their attention for years while the 

 rest of the farm was " running down," as any evidence of the profits of 

 farming. As if a man should fatten one pig out of a dozen, and trot 

 him forth at the farmers' fair as evidence of his management while 

 the rest of the brood were shrieking hungry clamors at home. In this 

 " earliest blest of heaven " avocation, let's have farm profits, not field. 

 That men make some money farming is granted, but it is an established 

 fact among financial critics that no man can borrow money to buy a 

 farm and live long enough to pay interest and principal. Farmers 

 who have got rich in this New England by sheer culture, are, like the 

 calls of the cherubim, exceeding few and far between. The cutting off 



