“The world knows nothing of its greatest men;”
“The world knows nothing of its greatest men;”
“The world knows nothing of its greatest men;”
but there are forms of greatness, or at least excellence, that die and make no sign; there are martyrs who miss the palm, but not the stake; there are heroes without the laurel, and conquerors without the triumph.
It cannot be denied that there is a class of men who never succeed in business. With a fair amount of earnest industry, they are still unable to get on. Bad luck seems to be their fate, and they are perpetuallyrailing at fortune. In this they are not without sympathy. There are hundreds of simple, good-hearted people, who regard them as ill-starred mortals, against whom an inscrutable destiny had set itself, and who are always ready to pity their mischances and help them in their last extremity. But is not that a very foolish philosophy which refers the misfortunes or the prosperity of individuals to preternatural causes, or even natural causes entirely foreign to the persons? Some people, it is true, owe a great deal to accident. Much of their success is due to circumstances not of their own making. So it is with others who suffer disappointment or disaster. But in those cases in which failure or success is certainly dependent on no extraneous agencies, but on one’s own means and energies, I am confident that no little of the complaint of our hard lot is misdirected, and that the charity which helps us out of our successive difficulties is misplaced. In plain words, our failures in this or that thing are often attributable to the fact that we engage in enterprises beyond our power. The world is filled with examples of this truth. We see hundreds of men in all professions and callings who never achieve even a decent living. The bar of every city is crowded with them. They swell the ranks of our physicians and theologians, and swarm in the walks of science and literature; in short, they run against and elbow you everywhere. They are the unfortunate people who have mistaken their mission. They are always attempting tasks which they have not the first qualification to perform.Their ambition is forever outrunning their capabilities. They fancy that to call themselves lawyers, doctors, divines, or the like, is to be what they are styled. Their signs are stuck thickly on doors and shutters all over the city, but they are without honor or employment. Of course they never prosper. They have no fitness for their vocation, no practical skill, no natural talent, and hence they fail.
But both they and society are losers by this. There is so much real ability for something useful that is thus sunk and wasted. The community is encumbered with a host of very incompetent barristers, preachers, physicians, writers, merchants, and so forth, and is deprived of as many good mechanics, and farmers, and laborers. What a pity it is that men will not be content to choose their pursuits according to their abilities. To encourage them to persist in any business for which they are not suited, and in which they never can obtain fortune or credit, is really unkind. It would be much less cruel to let them early feel the inconveniences of following a calling for which they are unfit, and go into one for which nature may have given them the requisite aptitude and powers.
But, in the ordering of a good Providence, failure in one pursuit does not imply failure in the next. I know and have proved this. The motto should be to keep moving, to try it again. Try it a hundred times, if you do not earlier succeed, and all the while be studying to see if you have not failed through some negligence and oversight of your own.Do not throw down your oars and drift stern foremost, because the tide happens to be against you. The tide does not always run the same way. Never anchor because the wind does not happen to be fair. Beat to windward, and gain all you can until it changes. If you get to the bottom of the wheel, hold on—never think of letting go. Let it move which way it will, you are sure to go up.
If in debt, do not let time wear off the edge of the obligation. Economize, work harder, spend less, and hurry out. If misfortune should overtake you, do not sit down and mope, and let her walk over you. Put on more steam, drive ahead, and get out of the way. If you meet obstacles in your path, climb over, dig under, or go around them—never turn back. If the day be stormy, you cannot mend matters by whining and complaining. Be good-natured, take it easy, for assuredly the sun will shine to-morrow.
If you lose money on a promising speculation, never think of collecting a coroner’s inquest about your dead body. Do not put on a long face because money is not so plentiful as usual—it will not add a single dollar to the circulating medium. Preserve your good-humor, for there is more health in a single hearty laugh than in a dozen glasses of rum. Be happy, and impart happiness to others. Look aloft, and trust in God. Be prudent as you please, but do not bleach out your hair, and pucker your face into wrinkles ten years ahead of time, by a self-inflicted fit of the dismals.
I went into the country with a determination tosucceed. As others had there succeeded, I could not be induced to believe that failure in so simple an enterprise could overtake me, as I felt myself quite as competent as they. A resolute will overcomes all difficulties. It was one of the leading characteristics of Napoleon to regard nothing as impossible. His astonishing successes are to be attributed to his indomitable will, scarcely less than to his vast military genius. Wellington was distinguished for a similar peculiarity. The entire Peninsular campaign was, indeed, but one long display of an iron will, resolute to conquer difficulties by wearing them out. Alexander the Great was quite as striking an example of what a powerful will can effect. His stubborn determination to subdue the Persians; his perseverance in the crisis of battle, and the emulation to which he thus stimulated his officers and men, did more for his wonderful career of victory than even his great strategic abilities. In the life and death struggle between England and France, during the first fifteen years of this century, it was the stubborn will of the former which carried the day; for though Napoleon defeated the British coalitions again and again, yet new ones were as constantly formed, until at last the French people, if not their emperor, were completely worn out. The battle of Waterloo, which was the climax of this tremendous struggle, was also an illustration of the sustained energy, the superior will of the British. In that awful struggle, French impetuosity proved too weak for English resolution. “We will see who can pound the longest,” said Wellington; and as the British did, they won the battle.
It is not only in military chieftains that a strong will is a jewel of great price. Nations and individuals experience the advantages of a resolute will; and this alike in large and small undertakings. It was the determined will of our forefathers to which, with divine help, we are principally indebted for our freedom. For the first few years after the declaration of independence, we lost most of the battles that were fought. New York and Philadelphia were successively captured by the foe; South Carolina fell; New Jersey was practically reannexed to England; almost every thing went against us. Had the American people been feeble and hesitating, all would have been lost. But they resolved to conquer or die. Though their cities were taken, their fields ravaged, and their captured soldiers incarcerated in hideous prison-ships, they still maintained the struggle, making the pilgrimage of freedom with naked feet, that bled at every step. Had our fathers been incapable of Valley Forge, had they shrunk from the storm-beaten march on Trenton, we should never have been an independent nation. There are people in the Old World, full of genius and enthusiasm for liberty, who yet cannot achieve freedom, principally, perhaps, because they lack the indomitable will to walk the bloody pilgrimage. The outbreak of the slaveholders’ rebellion covered the Union armies with defeat at numerous points, because rebellions are always successful at the beginning. But the determined will to crush out treason will eventually overwhelm and master it.
A strong will is as necessary to the individual asto the nation. Even intellect is secondary in importance to will. A vacillating man, no matter what his abilities, is invariably pushed aside, in the race of life, by the man of determination. It is he who resolves to succeed, who begins resolutely again at every fresh rebuff, that reaches the goal. The shores of fortune are covered with the stranded wrecks of business men who have wasted energy, and therefore courage and faith, and have perished in sight of more resolute but less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making port. In fact, talent without will is like steam dissipating itself in the atmosphere; while abilities controlled by energy are the same steam brought under subjection as a motive power. Or will is the rudder that steers the ship, which, whether a fast-sailing clipper or a slow river-barge, is worthless without it. Talent, again, is but the sail; will is what drives it. The man without a will is the puppet and bubble of others by turns. The man with a will is the one that pulls the strings and catches the dupes. Young man, starting out in life, have a will of your own. If you do not, you will drag along, the victim of perpetual embarrassment, only to end in utter ruin. If you do, you will succeed, even though your abilities be moderate.
All this may be viewed as a digression. But it is not so. I do not write for the rich and prosperous, but for those who have been unsuccessful. They need encouragement and bracing up. If their experience has been disastrous, that of others, who have succeeded, should be set before them. Some fifty years ago there lived in this city an old man, whoby dint of tact, with the aid of keen perceptive faculties, had acquired much celebrity with a large class of his neighbors as something between a prophet and a fortune-teller. He did not, however, assume the character either of a religious fanatic or of a crafty disciple of Faustus. But he was well read in the Scriptures; he had a good share of common sense, and a voluble tongue, and by degrees he attained a fame for wise sayings and for capability to advise, which he owed more to his natural talents and a loquacious disposition than to any less worthy means. Being advanced in years, and his lot humble, he turned the good opinion formed of him to the account of his livelihood, by discussing questions put to him by his visitors in a frank and manly spirit; and without ever demanding recompense, he was ready to receive any gratuity that was offered by them on their departure. Moreover, his advice was always, if not valuable, at least good in kind; and few quitted his humble dwelling without leaving their good wishes in a substantial shape, or without having also formed a favorable opinion of their mentor.
At length, so extensive did this good man’s fame become, that many from curiosity alone were induced to visit him, and hear his wise sayings. His counsel was usually couched in short and terse sentences, frequently in proverbs, and often in the language of the Bible, to which he would sometimes refer his inquirers for passages which he said would be found applicable to their case. As these passages were usually selected from the Proverbs, and other books of somewhat similar description, which containedsome rule of morals, or which advocated the Christian duties, he seldom failed to be right. Among others who were led by curiosity to this wise man, was a young farmer, then not long entered upon the threshold of life, whom, after some of the Scripture references adverted to, he dismissed with the parting advice, “To keep a smiling countenance, and a good exertion.” The young farmer lived to become an old man, and is now gathered to his fathers. But for many years I heard him from time to time revert with pleasure to his visit, and say that this simple aphorism had frequently cheered him in the hour of difficulty; and that the thought of the old man’s contented countenance and encouraging voice when he uttered it, had gone far to make him place confidence in his counsel.
We are all too prone to brood over the clouds upon our atmosphere, and too feebly do we keep the eye of hope fixed on the first sunbeam which breaks through as the symbol of their dispersion. In reality, most of them are merely passing clouds. Some glances at a blacker picture still, will go far to clothe with brighter hues the less gloomy picture which may happen to be our own. Thus, with “a smiling countenance and a good exertion,” let every one of us whether his lot be cast with the plough, the loom, or the anvil, put forth manfully his powers, and, thankful to a gracious God for the blessings yet spared, be it our effort in our worldly duties to follow the example set us in higher things, “forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before, let us press towards the mark forthe prize;” and if we thus demean ourselves, we shall not fail, in earthly any more than in spiritual things, to obtain our reward.
All know that one effect of the rebellion was to paralyze nearly every kind of business, suddenly enriching the few, but as suddenly impoverishing the many. On my quiet little plantation I was entirely beyond the reach of its disastrous influence. It lost me no money, because my savings had been loaned on mortgage. It is true that interest was not paid up as punctually as aforetime, but the omission to pay occasioned me no distress; hence I occasioned none by compulsory collection. The summer of 1861, however, did reduce prices of most of my productions. The masses had less money to spend, and therefore consumed less. Yet my early consignments of blackberries sold for twenty-five cents a quart, and the whole crop averaged fourteen. My strawberries yielded abundantly, escaping the frost which nipped the first bloom of all other growers, no doubt protected by the well-grown peach-trees, and netted me sixteen cents. Raspberries bore generously, and netted quite as much; while peaches, though few in number, brought the highest prices. The total income that year was certainly less than usual, by several hundred dollars—but what of that? It was double what I needed to support my family. Thus no national disaster, no matter how tremendous, seems able to impoverish the farmer who is free from debt. Nothing short of the tramp of hostile armies over his green fields can impoverish such a man.
EVERYgreat national calamity has the effect of driving men from the cities to engage in agriculture. Such has been the result of the late war for the Union. I have been in a position to observe its operation on the minds of hundreds whom it covered with disaster. There has been the usual desire to break away from the cities, and settle in the country. The life-long convictions of my own mind have taken possession of the minds of others. Property in the cities ceased, for a time, to be salable, while farms have been in more general demand than for years past. Foreign immigration was measurably stopped, because men fly from convulsions, not to countries where they are to be encountered. When war desolates the nations of Europe, the people migrate hither to avoid its horrors; when it desolates ours, they remain at home.
During the late disastrous experiences of city life, many of my friends upon whom they fell with great severity were free in their congratulations on my happy change of life. They had been as free in doubting the propriety of my experiment. Now, however, they looked up to me as possessing superior sagacity; were desirous themselves of imitating my example, and sought instruction and advice as tohow they should proceed. Three of them are already located near me; so that, instead of cutting entirely loose from old associates by coming into the country, I have attracted them into a closer intimacy than ever. Dear as my home was without them, it is rendered doubly dearer by close association with long-tried friends.
Location is perhaps the most important consideration. A cash market all the year round for every variety of produce that a man can raise, is of the utmost importance to secure. Such is invariably to be found in close proximity to the great cities; and there, singularly enough, the wealthiest farmers in the Union will generally be found. When we go to the extreme North, where their market is limited, and where they produce only the heavy grains, and grasses, farming is so little an object that improved places can always be bought for less than their cost. It is very frequently the same throughout the West, where so much that is raised upon a farm is valueless; and where, for even the grains, they have a market which barely pays the expense of living. The expense incurred in farming can be regulated by the profit of the crops; and where even no manure is required, the labor has to be expended, and crops in distant localities often fail to pay the expense of this labor. Where land will pay for a liberal cultivation, as well as fertilizing, it is much better, as a farmer must work his stock, and a certain amount of care is indispensable. The difference in value existing between those farms near a market and those remote from it, is enormous. If the mind will consider theimmense amount of produce in the way of fruits and vegetables which, near a city, will command the highest prices, and which at a distance are an entire loss, a conception can be readily formed of what they amount to in dollars and cents.
Land in Illinois and Iowa can be purchased for a dollar an acre, but corn is at times of so little value as to be consumed for fuel. The wheat crop is annually decreasing in its acreable product, because no one values or applies manure. The West may be the paradise of the European immigrant, who, having abandoned friends and home, may with propriety settle in one spot as well as in another; because, go where he will, he will be sure to find none but strangers. But for residents of our cities who go thither, very few acquire property by legitimate farming, even after sacrificing all the tender associations of relatives and friends whom they leave behind, and enduring hardships and trials of double severity with those they need encounter if they would consent to suffer them on lands within thirty miles of their birthplace. If they become rich, it is by hazardous speculation, or by the rise in value of their lands. So far as real, practical farming is concerned, it will be found that the East is incomparably superior to the West; but, so far as small farmers like myself are concerned, it would be folly to deny this superiority.
I say nothing as to the superior ease with which corn and wheat are produced in the two sections, but refer only to the amount of money that can be realized from an acre there and an acre here. Beyondquestion, there are certain crops that are produced with greater ease in the West than in the East; but of what value is this superior facility if it does not pay? I have cleared from a single acre of tomatoes more than enough to buy a hundred and sixty acres in Iowa. If I had located there, who would have been ready to buy my abundant crop of berries? The truth is, that it is population that gives value to land,—population either on it or around it,—to convert it into lots covered with buildings, or to consume whatever it may produce. The West is a glorious region for the foreign immigrant, or for him who was born upon the rugged hill-sides of the Eastern States, but it is not the proper location for the class for whose instruction these pages have been written.
Few persons who have been nurtured and educated all their days in Eastern cities, and who have probably never been more than fifty miles from home, have any correct idea of what this gigantic West really is until they reach the spot itself. Why leave the privileges of a long-established civilization,—the schools, the churches of home,—the daily intercourse of acquaintances and friends,—merely because land producing twenty bushels of wheat per acre can be purchased for a dollar, when that producing twenty times as much in fruit or vegetables can be had for fifty, and often even for less? I doubt not there must be many in that region who now wish themselves back in their old homes.
If my example be worth imitating, land should be obtained within cheap and daily access to any one ofthe great cities. If within reach of two, as mine is, all the better, as the location thus secures the choice of two markets. In Pennsylvania, all the land around Philadelphia is held at high prices. Much of it is divided into small holdings, many of which are rented to market gardeners at prices so high that none but market gardeners can afford to pay them. Others are worked by their owners, who live well by feeding the great city. Gradually, as the city extends in every direction, these small holdings are given up to streets and buildings, thus enriching their owners by the rise in value. The truckers move further back, where land is cheaper. But the modern facilities for reaching the city by railroad have so greatly multiplied, that they are practically as near to it as they were before. The yield from some of these small holdings is very large. But the cost of land thus situated was too great for my slender capital when I began.
Hence I sought a location in New Jersey. There unimproved land, within an hour of Philadelphia, can be purchased for the same money per acre which is paid in Pennsylvania as annual rent. For ten to twenty dollars more, in clearing up and improving, it can be made immediately productive, as the soil of even this cheap land is far more fertile than is generally supposed. Thousands of acres of this description are always for sale, and thousands are annually being bought and improved, as railroads and turnpikes leading to the city are being established. Many Germans have abandoned the West, and opened farms on this cheap and admirably locatedland, from which they raise prodigious quantities of fruit and truck for Philadelphia and New York.
Colonies of New Englanders, allured by the early season, as compared with that of their own homes, the productive soil and the ready access to market, have settled upon and around the new railroad just opened, which leads south from Camden through the town of Malaga, where a large tract has recently been divided into farms of various sizes. They bring with them all the surroundings of an advanced civilization.
To those with no capital but their own labor and a determination to conquer success, these lands offer the highest inducements. Most of them can be had on credit, by men who will settle and improve, at twenty to thirty dollars per acre, within a little over an hour’s ride to Philadelphia. This tract is distant but a few miles from the Delaware river, and probably no better could be found. Any number of locations can be had. Many are already improved by buildings, fencing, and all the preliminary comforts which cluster round an established home. The settler may choose between the improved and the unimproved.
But there is a better country north of Camden, lining the shore of the Delaware, where any number of locations may be found, improved by buildings, and at moderate prices, as well as on favorable terms as to payment. Vast progress in improvement has been made through all this region within ten years. New towns have been built, new turnpikes constructed, while the great railroad puts the cultivator inconstant connection with the two overgrown cities at its termini. Land is increasing in value as population flows in. The margin of the Delaware, from Philadelphia upward, is being lined with villages, between which new farm-houses and cottages are annually erected; and the young of this generation will live to see it a continuous settlement of substantial villas, peopled by the swarms of educated families which a great human hive like Philadelphia is annually throwing off. A location within such an atmosphere of improvement must continually increase in value. The owner will find himself growing richer from this cause, just as the trucker on the Pennsylvania side has done—not so rapidly, but quite as surely. An investment in such land, properly managed, and not permitted to deteriorate, will assuredly pay. My own little farm is an illustration; for more than once have I been solicited to sell at double the price it cost me.
I am now looking at the future, as well as at the present. Yet the apparent anomaly of there being always an abundance of land for sale in so desirable a district, must not be overlooked. But it is so throughout our country; there are always and everywhere more sellers than buyers. It is the same thing in the cities; everywhere there is somebody anxious to sell. It would seem that we either have too much land in this country, or too small a population. Time alone can produce the proper equilibrium. The land cannot be increased in quantity, but it is evident that the population will be. As this is not a treatise either upon land or farming, but the experience of asingle individual, so each claimant for a similar experience must choose for himself.
But choose as he may, locate as he will, he must not, as he hopes to succeed in growing the smaller fruits to profit, locate himself out of reach of a daily cash market. New York and Philadelphia may be likened to two huge bags of gold, always filled, and ever standing open for him to thrust in his hand, provided in the other he brings something to eat. From this exhaustless fountain of wealth, whole adjacent populations have become rich. The appetite of the cities for horticultural luxuries has revolutionized the neighboring agriculture, enhanced the value of thousands of acres, infused a higher spirit into cultivators, elevated fruit-growing into a science, and started competition in a long rivalry after the best of every thing that the earth can be made to yield. All this is no spasmodic movement. It will go on for all future time; but in this grand and humanizing march after perfection in producing food for man, the careful tiller of the soil, with moderate views and thankful heart, will be sure to findTen Acres Enough.
THE END.