404 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
and thus “ discount the seasons” ; remember that 
interdependent industries are the essence of fac- 
tory farming; employ the best men you can find, 
and keep them interested in your affairs; have 
a definite object and make everything bend 
toward that object; plant apple trees galore and 
make them your chief care, as in time they will 
prove your chief dependence. These are some 
of the principles of factory farming, and one 
doesn’t have to be old, or rich, to put them into 
practice. 
I would exchange my age, money, and acres 
for youth and forty acres, and think that I had 
the best of the bargain; and I would start the 
factory by planting ten acres of orchard, buying 
two sows, two cows, and two setting hens. 
Youth, strength, and hustle are a great sight bet- 
ter than money, and the wise youth can have a 
finer farm than mine before he passes the half- 
century mark, even though he have but a bare 
forty to begin with. 
I do not take it for granted that every man 
has even a bare forty; but millions of men who 
have it not, can have it by a little persistent self- 
denial; and when an able-bodied man has forty 
acres of ground under his feet, it is up to him 
whether he will be a comfortable, independent, 
self-respecting man or not. 
A great deal of farm land is distant from mar- 
kets and otherwise limited in its range of pro- 
duction, but nearly every forty which lies east 
