Part 30 (2/2)

CHAPTER LXVII

LOOKING FORWARD

I am not so opinionated as to think that mine is the only method of farming. On the contrary, I know that it is only one of several good methods; but that it is a good one, I insist. For a well-to-do, middle-aged man who was obliged to give up his profession, it offered change, recreation, employment, and profit. My ability to earn money by my profession ceased in 1895, and I must needs live at ease on my income, or adopt some congenial and remunerative employment, if such could be found. The vision of a factory farm had flitted through my brain so often that I was glad of the opportunity to test my theories by putting them into practice. Fortunately I had money, and to spare; for I had but a vague idea of what money would be needed to carry my experiment to the point of self-support. I set aside $60,000 as ample, but I spent nearly twice that amount without blinking. It is quite likely that I could have secured as good and as prompt returns with two-thirds of this expenditure. I plead guilty to thirty-three per cent lack of economy; the extenuating circ.u.mstances were, a wish to let the members of my family do much as they pleased and have good things and good people around them, and a somewhat luxurious temperament of my own.

Polly and I were too wise (not to say too old) to adopt farming as a means of grace through privations. We wanted the good there was in it, and nothing else; but as a secondary consideration I wished to prove that it can be made to pay well, even though one-third of the money expended goes for comforts and kickshaws.

It is not necessary to spend so much on a five-hundred-acre farm, and a factory farm need not contain so many acres. Any number of acres from forty to five hundred, and any number of dollars from $5000 to $100,000, will do, so long as one holds fast to the rules: good clean fences for security against trespa.s.s by beasts, or weeds; high tilth, and heavy cropping; no waste or fallow land; conscientious return to the land of refuse, and a cover crop turned under every second year; the best stock that money can buy; feed for product, not simply to keep the animals alive; force product in every way not detrimental to the product itself; maintain a strict quarantine around your animals, and then depend upon pure food, water, air, sunlight, and good shelter to keep them healthy; sell as soon as the product is finished, even though the market doesn't please you; sell only perfect product under your own brand; buy when the market pleases you and thus ”discount the seasons”; remember that interdependent industries are the essence of factory farming; employ the best men you can find, and keep them interested in your affairs; have a definite object and make everything bend toward that object; plant apple trees galore and make them your chief care, as in time they will prove your chief dependence. These are some of the principles of factory farming, and one doesn't have to be old, or rich, to put them into practice.

I would exchange my age, money, and acres for youth and forty acres, and think that I had the best of the bargain; and I would start the factory by planting ten acres of orchard, buying two sows, two cows, and two setting hens. Youth, strength, and hustle are a great sight better than money, and the wise youth can have a finer farm than mine before he pa.s.ses the half-century mark, even though he have but a bare forty to begin with.

I do not take it for granted that every man has even a bare forty; but millions of men who have it not, can have it by a little persistent self-denial; and when an able-bodied man has forty acres of ground under his feet, it is up to him whether he will be a comfortable, independent, self-respecting man or not.

A great deal of farm land is distant from markets and otherwise limited in its range of production, but nearly every forty which lies east of the hundredth meridian is competent to furnish a living for a family of workers, if the workers be intelligent as well as industrious. Farm lands are each year being brought closer to markets by steam and electric roads; telephone and telegraphic wires give immediate service; and the daily distribution of mails brings the producer into close touch with the consumer. The day of isolation and seclusion has pa.s.sed, and the farmer is a personal factor in the market. He is learning the advantages of cooperation, both in producing and in disposing of his wares; he has paid off his mortgage and has money in the bank; he is a power in politics, and by far the most dependable element in the state.

Like the wrestler of old, who gained new strength whenever his foot touched the ground, our country gains fresh vigor from every man who takes to the soil.

In preaching a hejira to the country, I do not forget the interests of the children. Let no one dread country life for the young until they come to the full pith and stature of maturity; for their chances of doing things worth doing in the world are four to one against those of children who are city-bred. Four-fifths of the men and women who do great things are country-bred. This is out of all proportion to the birth-rate as between country and city, and one is at a loss to account for the disproportion, unless it is to be credited to environment. Is it due to pure air and suns.h.i.+ne, making redder blood and more vigorous development, to broader horizons and freedom from abnormal conventions?

Or does a close relation to primary things give a newness to mind and body which is granted only to those who apply in person?

Whatever the reason, it certainly pays to be country-bred. The cities draw to themselves the cream of these youngsters, which is only natural; but the cities do not breed them, except as exotics.

If the unborn would heed my advice, I would say, By all means be born in the country,--in Ohio if possible. But, if fortune does not prove as kind to you as I could wish, accept this other advice: Choose the, country for your foster-mother; go to her for consolation and rejuvenation, take her bounty gratefully, rest on her fair bosom, and be content with the fat of the land.

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