738 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
NOV. i 
order. A bank will take this at par, the same as a bank 
draft. If you cannot do better you can send money in a 
registered letter from any post office. I am very glad to 
help this young man by my experience, and I want to as¬ 
sure him that he is starting right, by saving and investing 
part of his earnings. If he starts an account at a savings 
bank he should keep in a book of his own a statement of 
all the money sent. If he will send a stamp the bank will 
send him a receipt for each remittance. This should be 
preserved and compared with his own account in his book. 
Thus he will get quite a little insight into business. 
A young lady of about the age of this young man wrote 
much such a letter to me lately. She is an orphan and 
wanted to invest her little savings safely. She is now the 
happy possessor of a bank book and lays up many dimes 
that she might otherwise waste. With the interest added 
to the principal every six months, she knows she will in 
time accumulate considerable property. Let not the boys 
allow the girls to get ahead of them. If I were a boy and 
Longfield Apple. Fig. 330. See Page 742. 
at work for a well to-do farmer, who was known to be out 
of debt, and a safe, good man, I might try to get him to 
be my banker at the start. He could, if he wished to help 
on a boy (and such a man as I have described would), give 
me a little pass book and take my savings and pay me a 
small interest; but as for lending to Tom, Dick and Harry 
—well, I had some experience in that sort of thing, and 
invariably lost my money. Some might counsel lending 
to reliable merchants or small bankers in country towns. 
I have done lots of this, but would not try it again. Men 
whom I thought as safe as the Bank of England have gone 
under, and taken some of my hard earnings, and it was 
simply owing to good luck that they did not get more. 
I presume there are 100 people in this town who have sad 
memories of losses that came in this way. Some who had 
worked and saved for many years lost about all they had 
accumulated. No, the safest individual to deposit with is 
such a farmer as I have described. When you come to 
business firms, better skip over until you get to National 
banks, or solid savings institutions. Some National banks 
will take money aud pay a small interest. I should hope 
almost any of them would to encourage a boy. The boy’s 
wisest plan is to put his money in the safest possible place. 
These safe places understand business and can loan the 
money in larger sums on the best of security. Soon after 
I was married I loaned “ Tom ” $300. (How much hard 
Longfield Apple. Half Section. Fig. 33 1. 
work that represented !) I have his note now, but not a 
cent did I ever get on it. Had I put the money in the bank 
where our surplus is at present, it would now be nearly 
$1,000. I tell you, boys, I have been one of you, sure that 
“I knew it all,” and didn’t need older heads to advise. I 
hope many of you will not have to pay as dearly for your 
folly as I had. 
I would like to see some national system of savings 
banks to gather up the small sums of working people and 
young folks, and invest them safely. If every post-office 
was a depository, saving might be made popular then, and 
how much good could be done. How many boys and girls 
might be encouraged to start right, with a perfectly safe 
opportunity near at hand. T. B. terry". 
Summit County, Ohio. 
[R. N.-Y.—A few years ago postal savings banks were 
established in England, at which the smallest sums are 
received, and a fair rate of interest is allowed, and the re¬ 
sults have been admirable.] 
Savings Banks vs. Peanut Stands and Soda 
Fountains. 
Answering this question in the spirit in which it is 
asked, I must say that, outside of some savings banks, I 
know of no safe place of deposit. Opportunities for safe 
and profitable investments for very small sums, are not 
readily found. A few days since the writer, desiring to 
aid a young woman of 22, asked a National bank officer 
what the chances were for investing $100, now and then, in 
the bank or elsewhere. The replv was: “ I don’t know of 
any one who has bank stock to sell. The other day I had 
some funds of my own to invest and I bought stock in a 
Denver bank,”—this in the “ Wild West ” where money is 
always in demand. Not long since a savings bank was 
started in this place and a good many children began to 
make small deposits. A little fellow of 10 made his ap¬ 
pearance in town early one morning and having “ hustled 
out ” the cashier and some other officers of the institution 
to receive the money that seemed to be burning in his 
pocket, he made his first deposit of five cents. Now, the 
deposit of that first nickel was, from one point of view, a 
very small affair; but if it be the beginning of systematic 
saving, with all that systematic saving means of thought 
in expenditure, of self reliance and of determination to 
form no vicious habits because such habits cost money, 
why, then, that first nickel deposit may have been the 
beginning of a thrifty life. 
It is not the interest on the money that our young man 
of 19 should think so much of, as the formation of frugal 
habits. The savings bank may come to grief. In number¬ 
less ways the money investment may be a loss. The 
writer’s first hard earned money, a couple of hundred 
dollars, being the savings of years, was a total loss; but 
the habit of economy was not lost. Let our young man 
commence at once to save what money he can, putting it 
month by month in the bank. The first hundred dollars 
will coat a persistent struggle; but the next hundred will 
come easier. Then, when a spendthrift companion asks 
for the loan of a dollar, the answer can be: “I have none. 
1 have commenced saving my money, so that I may be 
ready for some good business opening one of these fine 
days.” 
There are young fellows who spend all their spare money 
on the girls, thinking that they can thus find a pleasant 
path to their affections. Said a handsome young woman, 
upon whom a young man had lavished, for him, very large 
sums of money : “ If he had been a fellow I cared for, I 
wouldn’t have allowed him to spend so much money on 
me.” This to her special girl friend. Young men may 
depend upon it that correct habits and a thrifty bank ac¬ 
count are a passport to everyone’s good will, unless it be 
that of the saloon-keeper and of others who fatten on 
other men’s vicious and extravagant habits. 
Amos Lawrence was a man who gave, during his life¬ 
time, $700,000 in charities. One day he gave his little 
grandson a small account book with advice somewhat as 
follows : “ I desire you to keep a strict account of all your 
personal expenses in this little book, and let me beg of 
you never to spend money for anything that you would be 
ashamed to record here.” He very justly claimed that the 
whole tendency of account keeping is toward morality. 
The reasons are many why our young man should keep an 
accurate account of all expenses, not the least of which is 
that the survey of one’s yearly accounts enables one to 
note what expenses were judicious and what might have 
been dispensed with. Horace Greeley used to say that the 
way to resume specie payments was to resume. And the 
way to save money is to save it, commencing to day. Com¬ 
mence to-day to give the pea-nut stand, candy store aud 
soda fountain the go-by. The habit of incessant nibbling 
is as bad for the health as for the pocket. As to tobacco, 
cigars, cigarettes, beer and whisky, they must not be in¬ 
dulged in at all. 
I know two young men, 18 and 22, who have worked this 
season at the same place at $25 per month and board. The 
younger has never spent a cent foolishly, but has sent 
much of his money to his father, whose crops have failed 
this year, and who has undoubtedly found the money very 
serviceable. The boy has retained only one month’s wages 
for himself, aud has entered the Normal School, paying 
his board by doing chores. The motto of the other young 
man would seem to be: “Have a good time to-day, for 
you can’t say what may happen to-morrow.” He says 
himself that he never laid up a cent in his life except that 
once he put $05 in the bank. This he soon drew out and 
quickly spent. Probably no day passes on which consider¬ 
able sums are not paid for nuts, caudies or temperance 
drinks. His summer’s wages have been drawn and spent 
with the exception of a very few dollars. The great thing 
is not so much to secure profitable investment for small 
sums as to possess or acquire habits of saving. Occasion¬ 
ally one sees a young man whose saving propensity is in¬ 
ordinately developed. I do not know which is to be more 
condemned, the spendthrift or the miser. It is a sad sight 
to see a young man diligent in the acquisition of money, 
while he starves all the higher impulses of the soul. There 
is no better investment of money than that which goes to 
cultivate the mind and heart. 
Let the young mau save what he can. If he does 
not know of a place where it may be profitably invested, 
some elderly busineis man will give him a pointer. Great 
numbers of men the world over hope to become rich by 
a lucky turn. To day they will buy city lots for a mere 
song, aud to morrow sell them for a large fortune. Thou¬ 
sands of men in our mountains are buoyed up by the daily 
expectation of “striking it rich” yet. We hear of the 
few who have become millionaires in a single day; but 
nothing is said of the many who still work on, poor as 
poor can be, with beards gray and eyes growing dim, but 
hopeful still. For the most of us financial success, in fact 
any kind of success, must come little by little. We must 
work for our money when we are young, that it may 
work for us when we are old. 
I congratulate the youth of 19. He can make his start if 
he will, and be always thankful that he did. Many do not 
realize that self-discipline is at the bottom of the matter. 
The spendthrift hand mentioned above, confided to a 
friend that in his opinion there was no way in which men 
could ever get rich except by “stealing themselves rich.” 
Most young men are looking forward to the time when 
they will have homes of their own, or at least they ought 
to be so looking. To live a happy-go-lucky life, saving 
nothing before marriage, is exceedingly unwise. To the 
providentmarriagegenerally adds happiness; totheimprov- 
ident, severe trial and consequent unhappiness. Our young 
man may have no taste for investing a hundred dollars 
now and then in United States bonds, or savings bankp, or 
railroad stocks; but he may have a quick eye for judging 
the values of sheep, calves, oxen, horses or hogs, and may 
some day find the buying and selling of live stock a very 
satisfactory business. 
Bogdanoff Apple. Fig. 332. See Page 742. 
The editor asks my personal experience in saving and 
investing small sums. When a boy in my teens, my only 
income was from picking berries, snaring and trapping 
game, or working for neighboring farmers. All these 
things had to be done after I had finished my stint at 
home. When my first $10 had been saved it was loaned at 
six per cent, to a friend who needed a small amount of 
money. At the age of 19 the hoard had increased to $25. 
This with some borrowed money enabled me to prepare 
for teaching. The first $200 were invested in stocks as re¬ 
lated above and lost. As money began to come in for 
teaching, a small United States government bond was 
bought. Later the United States bonds were sold and the 
money was invested in Union Pacific land-grant bonds. 
The advantage of this investment was that in 24 hours 
they could be realized upon, and then a farm out West 
could be bought. That was where the money ultimately 
went. In 1864, the writer saw a few pay days in the army. 
On these it took five men at the ordinarily dull sutler’s 
place, to pass out stuff as fast as the men wanted it. 
Many thousaud dollars were thus spent in a day with 
scarcely a thought of keeping a cent for investment. 
Weld County, Colorado. o. Howard. 
Building and Loan Associations are Good. 
The boy 19 years old, if in earnest in his desire to save his 
earnings, should be encouraged. He says he is a farm 
laborer, and I presume that as usual in such cases his 
Bogdanoff Apple. Half Section. Fig. 333. 
board, washing and mending are provided. Of course, he 
has to provide his clothing only, and the outlay for that 
will depend on his tastes. Beyond the requisite sum, there 
need not be any extraordinary outlay, aud if he is reason¬ 
ably prudent he could lay aside a fixed amount monthly 
by depositing it in a savings bank, if he is near one; or, he 
could send such deposits, even if a short distance from such 
an institution. When the amount had accumulated to a suffi¬ 
cient sum, it might be desirable to buy one share in a 
building loan association, if near a thrifty town; or he 
might be able to come in “on the ground floor” at the or¬ 
ganization of such an association and take as many shares 
as he could pay for by ihe monthly assessments. On the other 
hand, if such an association had been running for a con¬ 
siderable period he could do as suggested above—take 
one or more shares at a time, according to the amount of 
his accumulations. Loan associations in a thrifty town 
