22 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



SHAIjIi I SELL MY LITTLE FAKM? 



Farmers and mechanics, as well as profes- 

 sional men, with comfortable homes in the 

 comitry, are constantly tempted by the idea of 

 making more money, to abandon old friends, 

 old associations, and old habits of life, and seek 

 to better their condition by removal to the 

 cities and large towns. 



Passing by for the present, the sacrifice of 

 home feelings and enjoyments which everj- man 

 of mature age surrenders whenever he changes 

 his accustomed home, we will now look only at 

 the financial side of the question, and see what 

 a man, on any New England farm, great or 

 small, gives up when he leaves it and goes to 

 dwell in the town or city. We are always 

 complaining that we get nothing from our farms, 

 and we fancy if we could only get somewhere 

 where money is more abimdant, where wages 

 are higher, where there is more going on, we 

 should have some chance to be rich, and live 

 more independently. 



Perhaps there has never been a time when, 

 in this country, a farm, or even a field or gar- 

 den contributed so much to the independence 

 of a family of moderate means as in these times 

 of high prices. The reason is obvious. It is 

 because all that we buy, whether rent, or fuel, 

 or provisions, costs more than ever before, and 

 all that we do, by way of labor, produces a 

 greater value in the crops we raise. 



You say you get little or nothing from your 

 farm. Let us consider the matter and see 

 whether we do not underrate the profits of the 

 homestead. In the first jilace, you get your 

 rent, an item of which farmers hardly think. 

 Go to any large town, and such a house as 

 will be as respectable for your family there as 

 your present one is here, will cost you in rent 

 some four hundred dollars. It may be newer 

 and nicer than the old homestead, but it will be 

 no more comfortable or convenient. 



We say nothing of its being in some narrow, 

 noisy street, where you don't know your near- 

 est neighbor, and where you must hire watch- 

 ers in case of sickness. That belongs to the 

 sentimental side of the question, which to-day 

 we leave out of sight. 



Next, your farm gives you your fuel, — ^you 

 don't know how much, for you never had occa- 

 sion to measure it. A farmer's family of half 

 a dozen persons consumes yearly fjom ten to 

 fifleen cords of wood at least. Less fuel would 



suflfice in the city, with a liberal outlay for fur- 

 naces, patent stoves and heaters ; but with coal 

 at ten dollars a ton — a ton being equivalent to 

 about one cord of the best hard wood — when 

 kindlings are paid for, another hundred dollars 

 would be about used up. 



A cow or two afford the farmer all the butter 

 and milk he can use for his family. A poimd 

 of butter a week for each member of the family 

 is a fair estimate, and at fifty cents a pound we 

 have for our family of six, three dollars a week, 

 or $150 a year, and if we add only two wine 

 quarts of nulk daily, at the city price of ten 

 cents, we have $73 more. 



A small patch supplies you with potatoes, of 

 wliich you require some thirty bushels, which 

 will cost you at retail prices as many dollars, 

 although if you want to sell them at your farm 

 they will bring much less, there being two or 

 three profits between the producer and the city 

 comsumer. 



A very few trees supply your apples, worth 

 four or five dollars a barrel if you buy them. 

 And any ordinary garden gives the family veg- 

 etables fresh in summer, which the city will not 

 do at any price. 



The small matters of currants, and raspber- 

 ries, and strawbei'ries, the pears, the grapes, 

 — all become large matters when paid for in 

 money. The fowls that give abundance of 

 eggs, and a supply of poultry for Thaukgiving 

 and Christmas, seem of little account till re- 

 duced to a specie basis ; and two or three 

 porkers grow up with little cost, and in autumn 

 are worth a hundred dollars almost before we 

 Iniow it, and thus our bills for pork and lard 

 and fresh meat are easily balanced with the 

 butcher. 



In the country, everybody has a horse. We 

 care little about driving, perhaps ; l:)ut the boys 

 and girls, at least the boys, ought to learn to 

 ride and drive, and they do that and learn how 

 to tend the horse and cow without going to an 

 agricultural college. In the city or town, only 

 men of wealth can afford to keep liorses, and 

 hiring them at stable prices is almost as expen- 

 sive. 



So, brothcM" farmer, when you have got into 

 your hired house, with never a wood-lot, nor a 

 garden, nor a potato patch, nor a cow, nor a 

 hen, you may also set it down that you can 

 have no horse ; and if yon, however prosperous 

 in money matters, do not sigh for the Uesh-pots 



