THE CULTIVATOR. 
Feb. 
pose. As to even overseeing the work, that would 
be a matter of no account, for they are unable to 
tell whether it is done well or not. Such men 
must always buy everything they learn from ex¬ 
perience, and as the old proverb truly says, 
“Experience keeps a dear school.” 
Now, it seldom occurs that the class of men to 
which I am alluding, find everything about the 
farm which they have bought, to suit their ideas 
of taste and order, and immediately they begin to 
build and improve. The house wants modernizing, 
the out-buildings want repairing, the fields fencing, 
and a hundred other things want doing—all of 
which, after they are done, are found to have cost 
more money than the owner had any idea of, for 
few men are good calculators about any of the im¬ 
provements to be put upon a farm. Ere long they 
find their capital expended, and in very many 
cases that capital has been expended not on the 
farm but in the buildings. What, then, with their 
own expenses, which are generally pretty heavy, 
and the cost of hired help to work the farm, the 
balance sheet at the end of the year foots up, badly 
for them. They hope to do better the next year, 
but alas, there is much to be learned.—they can¬ 
not master the art of farming in a year. 
The great agricultural wheel turns round once 
more, and shows but little change for the better 
in their affairs. They become discouraged—work 
drags—it is monotonous, wearisome—the society 
around them, too, is not congenial, and in winter 
especially, the country is lonely—and to crow.n 
all, they find no profit in farming. What shall 
they do? Sell, and go back to business in the 
city. A wise conclusion, truly. The great mis¬ 
take made was in undertaking what they knew 
nothing about, and entering into an occupation for 
which they were unfitted by taste and habits of 
life. Men seldom make much, even in the walks 
of trade and commerce, when they leave the bu¬ 
siness to which they were trained, and go to ano¬ 
ther; why should they expect to make money by 
agriculture, when they are unable themselves to 
perform the labor it requires, and are unacquaint¬ 
ed with its fundamental principles. 
The third class of farmers consists of men of ca¬ 
pital, who have made money by speculations or 
some kind of business, and have retired to the 
country to spend a portion of it in embellishing a 
rural home, and gathering around them the tokens 
of rural taste and rural art. These are the men 
who send abroad and import, cattle, sheep, swine, 
&c., at a great cost; who build, improve, and 
adorn; who make the desert wilderness blossom as 
the rose. 
That they are ever so foolish as to suppose they 
will receive dollar for dollar for everything they 
pay out, we do not believe. We presume they 
have tastes to gratify, and are willing to sacrifice 
dollars and cents to enable them to do it. We re¬ 
joice that there is such a class of men among us. 
We love the country and rural life,.and if we can¬ 
not indulge the luxury of beautifying and adorn¬ 
ing home, beyond what we can do by the labor of 
our own hands, we are truly glad to have the beau¬ 
tiful homes of others to look at, and to feel that 
there are those in our midst who think there is 
something superior to the dollar. The beauty of 
nature and of art are to us fruitful sources of con¬ 
templation, and although we cannot live by them 
altogether, as they do not furnish meat and drink 
for us, yet beauty, like an angel’s presence around 
us, aids in lightening the labor of our lives. 
We have now given what we believe to be a true 
picture of the three classes of farmers around us.- 
The first, we see have difficulties of no common 
order to struggle against, but notwithstanding all, 
do generally succeed in making something. 
The second class, from habits and education, are 
generally unfit for the vocation they have chosen, 
and consequently seldom succeed. 
The third class enter into farming and rural life 
as a matter of pleasure, not profit—and conse¬ 
quently do not expect to make any thing out of 
their farming operations. Still we have . known 
instances among this class of farmers, where the 
judicious investment of capital has resulted in re¬ 
turning a fair interest. 
It is our purpose now to consider briefly some 
of the obstacles which lie in the way of the farmer, 
and keep hira from successful competition, so far 
as making money is concerned, with those engag¬ 
ed in trade and commerce. First let me say that 
the difference between the profit upon actual ca¬ 
pital and labor, invested in agricultural, and that 
in mercantile pursuits, is not as great as men usu¬ 
ally appear to think; the cause of the difference 
in the footing up of the balance sheet of the two 
at the end of the year, is simply that the farmer 
has the opportunity of turning his capital but once 
a year, and that what he uses in the course of his 
business, is actual capital and labor, while the 
merchant and trader, through the facilities of the 
credit system, trades in eighty cases out of one 
hundred, on an almost entirely fictitious capital. 
A man actually worth but $3,000 may do business 
to the amount of $30,000, and in fact does often 
do it. The whole system of trade as carried on 
at the present day, has too much of recklessness 
in it. We maintain that no man has a right to 
make his fortune by hazarding that of another. 
What does the fact of eighty men in business out 
of one hundred, failing in the course of fifteen or 
twenty years, show, but recklessness in trade. A 
