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eye. Ask this class of farmers about hard times and you 

 will find that they know them not. Nine tenths of these 

 men started in poor and all that you see about them is the 

 honest product of legitimate farming. Aside from what 

 you see, they have raised and educated children, have 

 given the boys aid to start in business or the girls a mar- 

 riage portion ; they have also helped to build roads, 

 schoolhouses, churches, and public buildings, and have 

 contributed towards the support of religion. 



A business that has enabled these men to accomplish 

 such results in spite of governmental disfavor, middlemen, 

 and the rest of the croaker's list, must in itself be a good 

 business. Do we hear of one farmer failing when we hear 

 of ten manufacturers or merchants ? Do you know of a 

 single instance where an industrious, temperate man who 

 has run in debt for a farm, has had it sold at mortgagee's 

 sale, unless from some unforeseen misfortune? 



In every community you will find well to do men who 

 have ac({uired all their property by tilling the soil. You 

 will also find another set of men, who complain that farm- 

 ing does not pay. In the latter case the trouble is not in 

 the business but in the men. Were they engaged in other 

 business they would go to the wall. 



The trouble with most of those who complain that 

 farming does not pay, is laziness and shiftiessness, two very 

 hard complaints to cure. They do not keep accounts 

 and fail to credit the farm much that properly and justly 

 belongs to it. For instance, let us suppose that a man 

 with a family of five persons wanting a home, purchases a, 

 farm of fifty acres, with good buildings thereon, within 

 three miles of a railroad town, at -fSO per acre. The use 

 of the house for a home would be worth ^150 ; fuel from 

 the farm, |50 ; vegetables, milk, butter, eggs, poultry and 

 pork, $150 ; use of horse aside from necessary farm work, 

 %50, making f 400, ten per cent, on the whole investment. 

 Not coming in ready cash we do not consider them as a 

 part of the income. But they would form a very inipor- 



