Feoceedinos of the Farmers' Clitb. G35 



A few years ago a German fanner gave his notes for $10,000 as 

 the purchase money of a flat, marsliy farm of ninety acres near Tren- 

 ton. He drained the wet parts, got them into tame grasses, kept as 

 mail}' cows as the place would carry, often twenty-five or thirty head, 

 erected all the buildings necessary for the dairy business, and in three 

 years from the purchase lifted the last mortgage note. Two hundred 

 dollars an acre would not buy the property. 



These three cases are recited, not as marks of uncommon thrift, 

 but as proofs that with the brave, the industrious and the hardy, lio 

 who rises with the sun, and eats no bread of idleness, a rich and 

 pruiitable farm is ni)t an impossibility, not even a difficult achieve- 

 ment. I notice, too, that the necessity for working off the vendor's 

 mortgage is a wholesome stimulus. Kunning in debt for the farm on 

 which one lives, is an exception to comni<»n maxims about debt. In 

 times like these, when values decline, and merchants tremble, it 

 behooves every man who knows how to grow beans or to feed cows, to 

 set forty acres of firm earth beneath his feet. 



Dr. E. W. Sylvester. — I can give an instance of similar import. 

 A poor young man, at Lyons, K. Y., began by working a farm on 

 shai-es. After awhile he Ijought a small patch, and gradually added 

 to it. To-day he is worth at least $30,000, and he made it by indus- 

 try, and not by speculation, llis crops are onions, tobacco and mint. 



Mr. "W. S. Carpentei". — All these persons worked hard, and were 

 economical. The latter fact is to be considered as the great secret of 

 their success. 



Mr. D. B. Bruen. — I might tell the story of a man now living in 

 Kewark, who began by working for five dollars a month. He thought 

 that was not enough, and soon got eight dollars. Then he went to 

 himself, as the negroes say, and in a few years bought eight acres of 

 land, for which he has refused $10,000. He bought it with lettuce, 

 cabbages and celery. 



Mr. J. W. Gregory.— Last s[iring a planter in Texas took me to 

 his front door, and bid me count fifteen cabins, not large, but sur- 

 rounded M'ith many marks of thrift. They are, he said, the homes 

 of Germans, mIio came lu-re a few years ago with no more-property 

 than they could carry in a kit. These families are now worth on au 

 average $15,000 each. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — I was not aware that anybody held farming to 

 I be an exce])tion to the rule that steady work and moderate living 

 I would make one rich. " Earn more than you spend," is a short rule 



