got this home they discovered that they had no harness to match, so he had to buy a costly harness. Then they said the old farm-horses were not fit to go before the new carriage, so he had to pay $300 for a better pair. And then it was fine clothes and costly furniture, etc., etc., until, as he said, he could stand it no longer. And he continued: 'I have now drawn to market my last load of wheat, and have a thousand dollars in money. I can buy a neighbor's farm that is handy and convenient to mine, for $5,000. I think it is worth it, and I am going to buy it to-day. I find that, as things are going, about all we can earn will go to support extravagance; while I know if I go in debt for a desirable piece of property, like this farm, my family will go to work and help me pay for it. We will then have something really valuable to show for our labor, and that some day will do my children some good."

With the following brief rejoinder by "B." the discussion was closed:

"The question of running in debt for a farm, under certain circumstances, is argued very fairly by F., of Orleans county, N. Y., in the Country Gentleman of March 26; but we see very little in the paragraph of B.'s article to which he refers, to call out his remarks. The advice is given not to put all one's capital in land, retaining nothing to stock and carry it on; and something must always be reserved for this purpose. No business can be carried on without capital of some kind--because something can never result from nothing—valuable crops always require seed and culture.

"In buying a farm the mistake generally made is in not providing sufficient means to carry it on. There is no difficulty in getting extended credit for a part of the purchasemoney on a good farm, and we believe the most direct means of becoming in fact the owner of one, is to go in debt,

if necessary, to a sufficient amount to provide ample means for its stocking, cultivation, and improvement. To make money rapidly, by farming, requires ample capital; those who cannot command it, lose, to say the least, one-half the profit they would otherwise secure. It may be true that those farmers who can see no better ingestment for their gains than the purchase of finery, need the pressure of debt to forward their advancement in property. In many cases, however, it would be more profitable than any other course, to spend their surplus capital in improvements on the old farm for several years, before adding a single acre to its extent in surface.

We

"We have seen and known of so many losses in farming, for the want of capital, that it makes us the more particular to urge this matter on the attention of farmers. hope F., with his wide extent of practical experience, may have seen something corroborative of this view of the matter, and that he will present it and illustrate it with his usual force and ability, in your columns."

The remarkable discussion thus quoted will not fail to give the reader many new and practical ideas on the subject of getting a farm. It ranges over many branches of the question, and contains a mass of robust good sense which an ambitious young man cannot too closely study. The suggestions made are not those of enthusiastic theorists, but the fruits of long and grave experience, such as, having been in most cases successful, are entitled to the highest respect. It is to be noted, moreover, that the question of how to get a farm being once started by one who saw the difficulty of obtaining it without capital, the subject was immediately recognized to be one of

great and general importance, and that a large number of intelligent and experienced men hastened to engage in publicly discussing it. As in a multitude of counsellors there is sometimes wisdom, so in this friendly collision of opinion the seeker after knowledge on the subject will obtain new light, strong encouragement, and every reasonable incentive to induce a beginning. This country must contain thousands of men who, in the various ways thus indicated, are now living on homesteads which their fathers or themselves have thus acquired.

It was the reading of this discussion in the columns of the Country Gentleman that led me to prepare this volume. It struck me that all that ought to be said on the subject had not been discussed. Indeed, the columns of a weekly journal do not afford space for a consideration of the numerous aspects in which it might be presented. It was evident, from the number of writers who volunteered to throw light on the question, that it was one in which a general interest must be felt. Hence my effort to increase the usefulness of the discussion by grouping together all that has been already said, with more that has been omitted.

CHAPTER V.

Exhausted Farms always to be had-Thriving Tenants-Owners anxious to sell-Bartering Farms-A lucky Beginner-City Owners-Taking Advice-Where to Search-Saving a poor Farm-Struggling with limited Means-A Cry from a Working

Man.

THE discussions quoted in the preceding chapters, though very clear and full, are far from exhausting the subject. There are multitudes of farms in all the Atlantic States whose owners have never contemplated working them. Some purchased as an investment, thinking farm land the safest property to hold. They rented them for a succession of years to tenants who skinned them with merciless assiduity, making them a heavier burthen to their owners the longer they held them. Year by year they thus became poorer and less productive. If rented on shares, as is generally the case, the tenants appropriated most of the product, the owners getting little or nothing. The latter lived away off in some distant city; they rarely visited their country property; they had neither taste nor opportunity for seeing whether it was handled wisely or honestly; the tenants were thus left to exhaust the land as rapidly as they could, and were depended on to make report, at the year's end, of what was

generally a bad season, of poor crops, poorer prices, and a still poorer return to the expectant

owners.

If the plundering tenant were discharged, he was generally succeeded by another whose genius for stealing was superior to that of his predecessor, as upon an exhausted farm he must skin more severely and steal more largely, to obtain a living. If the first thief took nearly all, the second was sure to take what was left. The owner being thus annually robbed, becomes tired of what he once considered the safest investment, and is anxious to sell.

But a farm thus long the victim of spoliation, finds few cash buyers. It will require time, labor, and money, to restore it. Depreciation is a rapid process, but restoration a slow one. Cash buyers prefer land in good condition, considering it cheaper to enter on a farm in prime order, at a high price, than on a poor one at a low figure. It is fortunate for the country that all who are looking for farms do not entertain the same opinion. If they did, the numerous tracts which have been thus skinned to death would be reoccupied by the forest, as none would be found courageous enough to undertake the slow and costly process of resuscitating them.

The disheartened owner thus finds neither a buyer nor an acceptable tenant, nor is he so situated as to give his farm the least attention himself. He does not need the purchase-money-all he desires is to find some reliable man to relieve him of the care of an intolerable burden, by taking the farm on some terms. It must be occupied by somebody, as