BUYING A FARM--A LONG SEARCH--ANXIETY TO SELL--FORCED TO QUIT.
As already stated, I had in round numbers a clear two thousand dollars,
with which to buy and stock a farm, and keep my family while my first
crops were growing. As I was entirely free from debt, so I determined to
avoid it in the future. Debt had been the bitter portion of my life, not
from choice, but of necessity. My wife took strong ground in support of
this resolution--what we had she wanted us to keep. I had too long been
aided by her admirable counsel to reject it now. She had a singular
longing for seeing me my own landlord. Her resolution was a powerful
strengthener of my own convictions.
Thus resolved, we set out in the early part of March to seek a home. I
was particular to take my wife with me--I wanted her to aid in choosing
it. She was to occupy it as well as myself. She knew exactly what we
wanted as regarded the dwelling-house,--the land department she left
entirely to my judgment. I was determined that she should be made
comfortable from the start, not only because she deserved to be made so,
but to make sure that no cause for future discontent should arise.
Indeed, she was really the best judge in this matter. She knew what the
six children needed; she was the model of a housekeeper; there were
certain little conveniences indispensable to domestic comfort to be
secured, of which she knew more than I did, while her judgment on most
things was so correct, that I felt confident if she were fully
satisfied, the whole enterprise would be a successful one.
I loved her with the fervor of early married life--she had consented to
my plans--she was willing to share whatever inconveniences might belong
to our new position--was able to lighten them by her unflagging
cheerfulness and thrift--and I was unwilling to take a single step in
opposition either to her wishes or her judgment. Indeed, I had long
since made up my mind, from observation of the good or bad luck of other
men, that he who happens to be blessed with a wife possessing good sense
and good judgment, succeeds or fails in life according as he is
accustomed to consult her in his business enterprises. There is a world
of caution, shrewdness, and latent wisdom in such women, which their
husbands too frequently disregard to their ruin.
I am thus particular as to all my experiences; for this is really a
domestic story, intended for the multitudes who have suffered half a
lifetime from trials similar to mine, and who yet feel ungratified
longings for some avenue of escape. My object being to point out that
through which I emerged from such a life to one of certainty and
comfort, the detail ought to be valuable, even if it fail to be
interesting. It is possible that I may sink the practical in the
enthusiastic, and prove myself to be unduly enamored of my choice. But
as it is success that makes the hero, so let my experience be accepted
as the test.
I had settled it in my mind that I would use thousand dollars in the
purchase of land, and that I could make Ten Acres Enough. This I was
determined to pay for at once, and have it covered by no man’s
parchment. But when we set out on our search, we found some
difficulties. Every county in New Jersey contained a hundred farms that
were for sale. Most of them were too large for my slender purse, though
otherwise most eligibly situated. Then we must have a decent house, even
if we were forced to put up with less land. Numerous locations of this
kind were offered. The trouble was--keeping my slender purse in
view--that the farms were either too large or too small. My wife was not
fastidious about having a fine house. On the contrary, I was often
surprised to find her pleased with such as to me looked small and mean.
Indeed, it seemed, after ten days’ search, that the tables had been
turned--she was more easily suited than myself. But the same deference
which I paid to her wishes, she uniformly paid to mine.
It was curious to note the anxiety of so many landowners to sell, and to
hear the discordant reasons which they gave for desiring to do so. The
quantity in market was enormous. All the real-estate agents had large
books filled with descriptions of farms and fancy country-seats for
sale, some to be had by paying one-fourth of the purchase-money down,
and some which the owners would exchange for merchandise, or traps, or
houses in the city. Many of them appeared simply to want something else
for what they already had. They were tired of holding, and desired a
change of some kind, better if they could make it, and worse if they
could not. City merchants, or thriving mechanics, had built country
cottages, and then wearied of them--it was found inconvenient to be
going to and fro--in fact, they had soon discovered that the city alone
was their place. Many such told us that their wives did not like the
country.
Others had bought farms and spent great sums in improving them, only to
sell at a loss. Farming did not pay an owner who lived away off in the
city. Another class had taken land for debt, and wanted to realize. They
expected to lose anyhow, and would sell cheap. Then there was another
body of owners who, though born and raised upon the land, were tired of
country life, and wanted to sell and embark in business in the city.
Some few were desirous of going to the West. Change of some kind seemed
to be the general craving. As I discovered that much of all this land
was covered with mortgages of greater or less amount, it was natural to
suppose the sheriff would occasionally turn up, and so it really was.
There were columns in some of the county papers filled with his
advertisements. I sometimes thought the whole country was for sale.
But yet there was a vast body of owners, many of them descendants of the
early settlers, whom no consideration of price could tempt to abandon
their inheritances. They seemed to know and understand the value of
their ancestral acres. We met with other parties, recent purchasers,
who had bought for a permanency, and who could not be induced to sell.
In short, there seemed to be two constantly flowing streams of
people--one tending from city to country, the other from country to
city. Doubtless it is the same way with all our large cities. I think
the latter stream was the larger. If it were not so, our cities could
not grow in population at a rate so much more rapid than the country. At
numerous farm-houses inquiries were made if we knew of any openings in
the city in which boys and young men could be placed. The city was
evidently the coveted goal with too large a number.
This glut of the land-market did not discourage us. We could not be
induced to believe that land had no value because so many were anxious
to dispose of it. We saw that it did not suit those who held it, and
knew that it would suit us. But we could not but lament over the
infatuation of many owners, who we felt certain would be ruined by
turning their wide acres into money, and exposing it to the hazards of
an untried business in the city. I doubt not that many of the very
parties we then encountered have, long before this, realized the sad
fate we feared, and learned too late that lands are better than
merchandise.
One morning, about the middle of March, we found the very spot we had
been seeking. It lay upon the Amboy Railroad, within a few miles of
Philadelphia, within gunshot of a railroad station, and on the outskirts
of a town containing churches, schools, and stores, with quite an
educated society. The grounds comprised eleven acres, and the
dwelling-house was quite large enough for my family. It struck the fancy
of my wife the moment we came up to it; and when she had gone over the
house, looked into the kitchen, explored the cellar, and walked round
the garden, she expressed the strongest desire to make it our home.
There was barn enough to accommodate a horse and cow, with a ton or two
of hay, quite an extensive shed, and I noticed that the barnyard
contained a good pile of manure which was to go with the property. The
buildings were of modern date, the fences were good, and there was
evidence that a former occupant had exercised a taste for fruit and
ornamental trees, while the garden was in very fair condition. But the
land had been wholly neglected. All outside of the garden was a perfect
scarecrow of tall weeds, thousands of which stood clear up to the fence
top, making sure that they had scattered seeds enough for twenty future
crops.
But I noticed that the land directly opposite was in the most admirable
condition, and I saw at a glance that the soil must be adapted to the
very purpose to which it was to be applied. The opposite ground was
matted with a luxuriant growth of strawberries, while rows of stalwart
raspberries held up their vigorous canes in testimony of the goodness of
the soil. A fine peach-orchard on the same neighboring property, seemed
impatient to put forth and blossom unto harvest. The eleven acres could
be no worse land than this, and though I had a horror of weeds, yet I
was not to be frightened by them. I knew that weeds were more
indigenous to New Jersey than even watermelons.
This miniature plantation of eleven acres belonged to a merchant in the
city. He had taken it to secure a debt of eleven hundred dollars, but
had pledged himself to pay the former owner whatever excess over that
sum he might obtain for it. But pledges of that loose character seldom
amount to much--the creditor consults his own interest, not that of the
debtor. The latter had long been trying to sell, but in vain; and now
the former had become equally embarrassed, and needed money even more
urgently than the debtor had done. The whole property had cost the
debtor eighteen hundred dollars. His views in founding it were similar
to mine. He meant to establish for himself a home, to which at some
future period he might retire. But he made the sad mistake of continuing
in business in the city, and one disaster succeeding another, he had
been compelled to abandon his anticipated refuge nearly a year before we
came along.
All these facts I learned before beginning to negotiate for the
purchase. As the banished man related them to me, going largely into the
history of his hopes, his trials, his disappointments, I found cause for
renewed thankfulness over my superior condition. With a single
exception, his experience had been the counterpart of my own--he had
lost all and was loaded with debt, while I had saved something and owed
no man. But when, in language of the tenderest feeling, he spoke of his
wife, whose highest passion had been gratified by the possession of a
home so humble as even this--when he described how happy she had been in
her garden, and how grief-stricken at being compelled to leave it--his
eloquence fairly made my heart ache. I am sure my wife felt the full
force of all he said. Her own attachment to the spot had already begun
to take root, and she could sympathize with this rude sundering of a
long-established tie.