1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



291 



For the Nezc England Fanner. 

 DOES FARMIWG PAY? 



If, as Sii- Humphrey Davy says, "Agriculture 

 is an art to which we owe our means of subsist- 

 ence," then the above question, from one point of 

 view, is the most absurd one which can be imag- 

 ined. For, if it pays to keep body and soul to- 

 gether, it certainly jjays to provide the food by 

 wliich we are enabled to perform this daily mira- 

 cle. If all the inhabitants of the earth should to- 

 day resolve not to cat or drink anything which is 

 produced by agriculture, or earth-working, how 

 long would it be before famine and starvation 

 would overtake them ? They might possibly ex- 

 ist one, two or three years on the flesh of wild 

 animals and birds, on fish, and the fruits which 

 grow spontaneously, but when these kinds of food 

 became scarce, as they would very soon, in some 

 localities, what would they do ? They must either 

 perish with hunger, or return to the cultivation of 

 the ground. If those who pretend to consider 

 farming an improfitable business, and are inclined 

 to look down upon the poor earth -worker, would 

 try to live and "keep house" entirely independent 

 of the farmers' labors, it would not be many months 

 before their tune would be changed from a major 

 to a minor key. 



Agriculture is the art which sustains human 

 life ; it must therefore be profitable to every indi- 

 vidual whose life is not devoted to evil doing, in 

 which case existence itself is more of a curse than 

 blessing. But is the farming business profitable 

 in a pecuniary sense ? This is a question of much 

 imjjortance, but not so great as many others 

 which might be proposed concerning the farmer's 

 occupation. Facts prove that with the same 

 amount of capital, the same amount of exertion, 

 energy, patience, wisdom and knowledge, farm- 

 ing is as good a business by which to make 

 money as any other. But in this, as in every 

 other pursuit, some persons will become wealthy, 

 while others, with equal advantages, will come 

 to poverty. There are two men within the circle 

 of my acquaintance who are an illustration of the 

 truth of this assertion. One of these men com- 

 menced farming with a farm worth $2500, with 

 $1000 at interest, but in a few years he succeed- 

 ed in getting rid of the whole of his property, by 

 ignorance and indolence. The other man bought 

 a farm worth $4000, and was in debt $1600. In 

 four years he made enough, by hard labor upon 

 the farm, to pay all the debt, and is now a rich 

 man. There are others with whom I am acquaint- 

 ed, who have acquired a handsome property by 

 farming, and others still, who have remained poor, 

 or have become so while engaged in the same 

 business. But in every instance which I can call 

 to mind, the degree of success in acquiring prop- 

 erty by farming, has been in proportion to the 

 amount of determination, industry, economy, good 

 judgment and knoM'ledge which has been mani- 

 fested in the undertaking ; and it is just so in all 

 kinds of business. 



I think it may be laid down as a rule, that suc- 

 * cess in amassing wealth depends not so much on 

 the kind of employment which a person may be 

 engaged in, as upon certain qualities of the mind, 

 with which some individuals are much more large- 

 ly endowed than others. Phrenologists say, that 

 a large bump of acquisitiveness, with a proper 



combination of some of the other organs of the 

 mind, will enable a man to become rich in circum- 

 stances wherein others, who have not the organi- 

 zation, will soon become candidates for the alms- 

 house. 



I do not consider that a money-making charac- 

 ter is one to be coveted, for very frequently, the 

 possessors of such a character have faculties for 

 nothing else but hoarding up treasures of gold 

 and silver. There are other objects of life, the 

 pursuit of which confer far gi-eater and more last- 

 ing happiness upon the individual and the world, 

 than the mere accumulation of dollars and cents, 

 although this is important in its place. 



South Oroton, 1862. S. L. White. 



For the New England Fanner. 



HOW IS THE ■WOHLD TO BE FED ? 



BY JUDGE FRENCH. 



It seems to be agreed among those who know 

 most about the matter, that the Union army now 

 in actual service, exclusive of wounded and dis- 

 charged soldiers, and those held as prisoners by 

 the rebels, exceeds a half million of men. The 

 most of these are from the classes of laboring men> 

 and a very large proportion of them from the 

 farms. The rebel army numbers probably two- 

 thirds as many, comprising,, in the language of 

 Tom Moore, 



"Christians, Mohawks, Democrats and all 

 From the rude wigwam to the Con^ess-Hall, 

 From man the savage, whether slaved or fiee. 

 To man the civilized, less tamed than he." 



Although the Southern army is not composed 

 so exclusively of working men as the Northern, 

 yet the effect of raising it is probably to distm-b 

 the system of agricultural labor more than it is 

 disturbed by the departure of our own volunteers. 

 The white men are away from their plantations, 

 and the slaves, if they remain, are of course idle 

 and reckless. Freemen of all classes have been 

 forced into the ranks, leaving their business, what- 

 ever it might be, to destruction. Slaves have been 

 taken under military requisition, wherever they 

 could be made useful, and set to labor on the for- 

 tifications, and even to work the guns. Besides 

 this, in all Virginia, all along the coast, in all the 

 region where either army has encamped, or near 

 where it has marched, all is barren as a desert. 

 No man plows or plants where he has no assur- 

 ance that he can gather liis harvest, and we can 

 hardly suppose that much provision for the future 

 can have been made, anywhere in the Southern 

 States. 



Who then is to feed this country, with all the 

 South running riot and destroying her own sub- 

 stance ; with nearly a million of men in arms, con- 

 suming wastefully the necessaries of life, and with 

 agriculture thus deprived of so large a portion of 

 her labor ? We are not of the croaking kind, and 

 we have great faith in the productive capacity of 



