22 ADDRESS. 



value, in three years. Thus his second year is started, with the same 

 thing to be done again, which so severely taxed his resources, and 

 under circumstances not as favorable as at first : and so on ; there is 

 no need to follow him further. The story of his toils, his struggles, 

 his privations, are better known, possibly to many of you, than to me. 

 For there are very few New England farmers, whose lives have not 

 been a realization of the same story, told over and over again, of hard 

 work, and severe economy, and labor but poorly requited. Insufficient 

 capital is very largely at the bottom of this. A pressing need of 

 money, too often chronic, and a consec|uent necessity for skinning the 

 farm to raise it, tells the sad story of impoverished lands, and dimin- 

 ished products. 



A word here, explanatory of a seeming inconsistency, may not be 

 amiss. I have advised borrowing capital, in preference to going with- 

 out it, and it may be said that owing for one's farm, is but borrowing 

 capital. This is true ; but a debt for money borrowed permanently, 

 that is, with no immediate necessity for paying the principal or any 

 part of it, so long as the interest is duly eared for, is a very different 

 thing, from the mere temporary indebtedness of one, who buys a farm 

 or merchandise, agreeing to pay at a fixed time, or contracts to pay at 

 stated periods. If the farmer owes money permanently, be has only 

 the interest to care for, and the business ought to earn, and enable hinj 

 to pay it easily. If it does not do this, it is not worth pursuing. If it 

 does, the payment will not embarrass him, and thus comparatively at hiS' 

 ease, he lays broad and deep, the foundations for a productive farm, 

 which in later years, will eiiable him easily to pay his debts, and own 

 his capital. In the case we have cited, it was not the payment of inter- 

 est, but of a portion of the principal, which compelled, by premature 

 sales of hay, stock and timber, the virtual payment of from twenty-five 

 to fifty per cent, for the raising and use of money. Still you will say 

 it is hard and discouraging if true, that success in farming, depends 

 upon possession of capital. I grant it, but must still adhere to my prop- 

 osition, that the full measure of success is not to be accorded, to him 

 who starts any business, without the absolute command, (either by own- 

 ing or permanently borrowing,) of sufficient capital. But is there nO' 

 remedy ? Most assuredly ; and here we are brought face to face, with what 

 seem^; a great mistake in the education and training of our young men, 

 and an idea developed thereby, which has done, and is doing great mis- 

 chief in their minds. 



The error is in trying to make mature men of them too early, and the 

 false idea thus developed, is that they must do or try to do, every thing 

 that full grown men attempt. In accordance with this idea, they must 

 commonco business on their own account, at the earliest dawn of man- 

 hood, and be ready to retire and enjoy themselves in entire freedom 

 from care, before they are forty. Too often they recover from their 

 delusion, to find themselves bankrupt at thirty. It might afford an 

 i nstructive lesson to such, could we ascertain by careful inquiry, what 



