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 circumstances 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 trespass 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
passes 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 passed, and
the farmer is a personal factor in the market. He is learning the
advantages of coöperation, 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 sunshine, 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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End of Project Gutenberg's The Fat of the Land, by John Williams Streeter