Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1875 — Sleight-of-Hand Farming. [ARTICLE]

Sleight-of-Hand Farming.

The prevailing traits or characteristics of a people are not changed in a day or during the lifetime of a generation. This proposition could be amply proven by facts from the history of man but that is not necessary, for its truth is verified in the life and experience of each individual. The great desire of men now is to get suddenly rich, and the farmer, away from the excitements of commercial pursuits, has caught the spirit of ambition and speculation which rules the hour, and would fain by a wave of the hand turn the brown earth into gold. In their unwise haste to get riches they neglect the elements which alone can make them good agriculturists as well as rich men. Farming, as well as law or medicine, cannot be mastered in an hour. How many students in the profession hurry over their studies, looking only to results which are merely imaginary and never to be realized.—lt is an organic fault of the American farmer that he does everything in a hurry. He hurries his improvements from the opening up of a new farm to the building of a dwelling where -he hopes to spend his days and close his life out—all .is done with a haste to get to results which is seen nowhere else on the globe but in America. Of course this sleight-of-hand course of business leads to many failures, disappointments and sometimes to a breaking up of business wholly. Now a farmer can rarely succeed except by a most thorough course from beginning to end. His improvements must be substantially made. His clearings must be complete, his fences solid and permanent, and all his buildings must evince careful planning and thorough finish and execution. None of these things should be done in so much of haste that they have to be renewed in a few years. We try to do too much in a single year. And perhaps the reason for this is that our w'ants come thick and fast—fastexthan the limited- means we find ourselves in possession of will gratify. We go into debt, and thus mortgage our labor beforehand. We then hurry to do a great deal to relieve ourselves of the burden, and consequently do little thoroughly. Our crops arc light because the culture was not thorough. Here is an emergency. Perhaps now we have to borrow a little money for momentary relief; and resolve to do more to clear ourselves of embarrassment. But the result is in no wise different. Haste and surface operations are not the elements of success. They never made a lawyer, a doctor, a literary man; nor will they ever make a good farmer or a good mechanic. A remark that Freeman Hunt once made in reference to the merchant will apply with equal force to theTarmer: “ It is only by a perfect knowledge of business, by an exercise of tact, judgment and cautious discrimination, coupled with habits of industry, close application to business, and a diligent observation of the laws of trade and manners of men, that a man can ever hope to become a merchant of honorable eminence.” The desire to be suddenly rich—to possess large means by a mere shuffle of the fiards —instead of acquiring wealth by a steady, sure, though slow, process, is the fruitful cause of so much embarrassment and poverty in rural life. Many young men think it humiliating to begin life in a small way; but they must remember that the acquirement of wealth is not a miracle to be performed at will; that great fortunes have been the result of very small beginnings and slow accumulations, and, above all, that while they are doing work in a ; small way they are in the best possible pbsition for gaining useful knowledge of their pursuit and of the men with whom they aye doing business. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in a lecture said he had often been asked how he managed to accomplished so much work ? He answered that he did it by never doing too much at any one time. A man to get through work well must not overwork himself. When he worked, he said, he gave his attention to what he was about. That is, he did net try to do too much, but what he did do he did thoroughly. 1 Well, that is precisely the rule to be adopted in farming. Don’t try to skim over and spread over a great surface, but I rather farm less and do that in the most ! thorough manner. Don’t be in a hurry, i but complete whatever is undertaken. It i is an odd declaration, but it is a true one, ; that a slow farmer will get quickly rich. . It is because he is careful anti systematic, ■ whereas hurry drives away system, banishes order, and does everything by a 1 sleight-of-hand process.— Detroit Tribunt. A chy sure to stop a buss —Mammas looking.