1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 



65 



the gentleman will pay the family so much a | 

 week for cooking, the master finding every- 

 thing. This is done that the master and mis- 

 tress may have more leisure, but while enjoy- 

 ing this leisure their property is going to waste 

 and they themselves to ruin. Of this, gentle- 

 men, I have been a personal witness. Would 

 it not be much better for every farmer's wife to 

 superintend her own domestic affairs, provid- 

 ing she does not work herself? Is it best to 

 bring up our daughters so daintily that they 

 they will become so nervous that they swoon 

 at the sight of the working-men in the kitchen ? 



Where a farmer employs but one man this 

 plan may answer, but with from five to twenty 

 I think he would find it more costly and in- 

 convenient than to board them in his house. 

 Those who have money in abundance may care 

 little for economy, but with farmers like my- 

 self there is little to waste. 



Farmers, like others, desire to see their 

 wives happy, and I venture to say that thou- 

 sands are more happy in the kitchen than in 

 the parlor. Indoors as well as out, all needed 

 help should be provided, so that the wife 

 should have time to be sufficiently familiar 

 with the affairs of the farm to manage them in 

 the husband's absence. lam aware that study 

 and inquiry are now necessary to keep up with 

 the improvements of the day, but it would be 

 good policy for us to keep in remembrance 

 the old rhyme — 



Man to the plough, 

 Wife to the sew, 

 Boy to the flail, 

 Girl to the pail. 

 And your rents wiU be netted ," 



But man tally-ho, 

 Miss at piano, 

 Boy Greek and Latin, 

 Wife silk and satin. 

 And you'll soon be gazetted. 



I hope Mr. Jameson will read this with 

 the same good feeling in which it is written, 

 as I wish to be friendly with those whose opin- 

 ions I may not fully endorse. E. Hebb. 



Jeffersonville, Vt., Jan., 1870. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 "STICK TO THE FARM." 



These four words have made a text for a 

 great amount of agricultural writing and speak- 

 ing. It comes most often from men who are 

 not themselves on farms. Men who buy all 

 their farm products, men who make agricul- 

 tural addresses at county fairs, and from men 

 who make agricultural papers for farmers' 

 reading. 



Now, to a hard working farmer, or far- 

 mer's wife, who is, by the strictest economy, 

 just making a living, this text is not very 

 musical, coming as it often does from an edi- 

 tor who is getting a liberal salary, or from a 

 lecturer who is making more money in one day 

 than the farmers net income for a year. I 



hardly ever see those words at the head of an 

 article without feeling a little cross. 



The writers seem to wish to encourage the 

 farmer ; to convince him that he is really 

 better off on the farm than he could be any 

 where else. 



Now it seems to me, to be the most natural 

 thing in the world for men who have their 

 food to buy, to desire to see plenty of f irmers 

 to raise it. I, as a farmer, certainly like to 

 see people stick to other business, — the more 

 the better. 



I find my best place to sell is where there 

 are 7io farmers. Do the mechanic, the trades- 

 man and the man of letters, find it the cheap- 

 est place to buy where the people are all far- 

 mers? Why should not they say, "stick to 

 the farm," and try to convince the farmers' 

 sons that it is the best place for them also. 



And why should not I say to you who are 

 not farmers, stick to your trade, or profession, 

 or store. Do not raise anything to eat. You 

 are doing better as you are. You can buy 

 your produce a great deal cheaper than you can 

 raise it. And your sons had better stick to the 

 business you have taught them to do. They 

 will succeed much better than if they try farm- 

 ing. Advice which is pi'obably just as good 

 for them as is yours for my son. 



You advise us to stick to the farm, because 

 you say we are so independent, or because it 

 is so healthy, or that rural life is so pleasant 

 or because we are so free from care, and 

 anxiety, and because all but three in a hun- 

 dred of business men fail. You like to cite 

 cases where farmers have begun in a small 

 way, and have succeeded in gaining what you 

 call, ybr them, a competence. 



I know a man who is worth perhaps twenty 

 or thirty thousand dollars, who boasts that he 

 has made more money at farming than any 

 man of his acquaintance. Now the fact is he 

 is entitled to be called a farmer about as 

 much as are thousands of business men who 

 keep a horse to ride to their store, and raise 

 hay enough on their house lot to keep him, 

 with the addition of grain bought. 



This farmer had a farm, a grist mill, and a 

 saw mill almost fall to him, from his uncle. 

 He paid something for them, but nothing near 

 what they were worth, or what any one else 

 would have had to pay. Then, in the same 

 way he came in possession of more standing 

 lumber than his mill could saw out as fast as it 

 grew. He is now an old man. His wife has 

 worked very hard a great many years. They 

 have hired enough help every winter to cut 

 and haul all the logs the mill would saw, and 

 have boarded all the help ; have kept teams 

 enough to do the carting, and raised hay enough 

 to keep the teams, and farm produce enough 

 to board the help. He has bought oxen by 

 the score in the fall, kept them on hay that 

 grew on the meadow which the mill pond cov- 

 ered in the winter, and sold them in the spring 

 to the neighboring fanners, at an advance, 



