Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1869 — How a Boy Bought a Farm. [ARTICLE]

How a Boy Bought a Farm.

Several years ago, a youth of sixteen years, of good sense, and a good English education, not having profitable employment at his father’s home in Kentucky, sought for employment among his enterprising neighbors a lew miles distant; and although wages were low in those days of gold and silver currency, he saved from his first year’s wages seventy dollars. He was then seventeen years old, healthy, lively looking, aspiring and ambitious to become useful, noble, and perhaps great. He had already learned that money loaned at high rates of interest was oppresseve to the borrower, and reacted on the loaner, and in the falling of prices of nearly all articles in the commercial world; that men, sought justifications for their bankruptcy and delinquency in the fact that they had paid large rates of interest. Feeling, therefore, that a liberality, as well as justice, was necessary to every man’s deeding with his fellow men, he loaned his S7O to an exemplary, enterprising and prosperous trading man in his neighborhood, at the lowest rate of interest known in business .in that State, viz.: six per cent, per annum. He worked another year, clothed himself in neat Kentucky jeans, and other cheap but neat articles of apparel, and went to a country school three months in the winter of that year, and learned the rudiments of Latin and something of the higher branches of mathematics, working for a prosperous and liberal farmer evenings and mornings to pay she boarding; and at the end of tbe second year, or when he was eighteen years of age, he had saved $96 more. His character for integrity and industry began to be better known in the neighborhood, and his services were sought for. He worked on a farm and rode as collector for trading men and the Sheriff of his county; and: at the end of his nine-

toenth year lie had hav«d sllO more. With taela test-si -accumulated on bis other two year*’ wage* he bad uow $800; was comfortably clothed, and had a good 1 business- education, Which he improved from one winter to another, until he became a scholar, both literally and scientifically. HU influence and usefulness increasing. he had. at the age of twenty years, S4BO. At twentyrone he had accumulated $650, and was well known for his activity of life, as a young man of intelligence, virtue and usefulness, aa well as a young man of very attractive manners and ways. He moved to a Western State, where land was cheap, and entered 160 acres by a land warrant which he purchased with $l5O of his money. He made a good selection of land, in a good region of country ; he used a portion of the balance of his money in improving his land, buying a little stock and a few implements for fanning, and the second year he raised a small crop. Having gone.to his neighborhood with about S4OO in money, and used it cautiously, he by degrees gained the name of a responsible citizen and a good paymaster, and hit influence rose gradually from his appearance among his new and scattering neighbors, Year after year he raised a crop, continuing to read the best newspapers, periodicals, and books, which still further improved his mind, till sheep, cattle, and other stock grew up in flocks around him, more land adjoining him being purchased from time to time, till now he finds himself, when scarcely arrived at the middle of life, a gentleman farmer of wealth, surrounded by comfort and many luxuries, esteemed by neighbors both far and near, and would receive the suffrage of those who know him to any office for which he might be nominated, irrespective of party politics, so firm is their confidence in bethhis ability and integrity.—St. Louit Journal of Agriculture.