Except in special cases, as in truck farming, it is cheaper to purchase natural plant-food in the soil than artificial fertility. One acre of land may have potential plant-food sufficient under superior tillage for one hundred crops, while another unaided will yield but half as many, and yet the two pieces of land are often priced at the same figure. In other words, land of high productive power is usually cheaper than land of low productive power. A good farm may be cheaper at $50 per acre than a poor one as a gift.
Last, but not least, is the road to the farm. Every free-born American demands a public highway in front of his house; if farms are small there must then be a highway about every mile, or, at most, every two miles. This leads to cutting up the country into enlarged checkerboards, to a multiplication of highways so great that none of them can be kept passably good without overtaxing the land which adjoins them. On account of the contour of the land over which they pass, some roads are extremely difficult and are well described by the man who, when asked how far it was from a certain town to another one, answered: “Thirty miles, and it’s up hill both ways.” As I write this I look out upon a washed clay road which stretches up and on towards the horizon for six weary miles, so steep that the team must maintain a walk for the whole distance in ascending or descending. What is land worth at the other end of this road, as compared with that which lies six miles away in the other direction, along a smooth, level pike? Every grown farm boy should have a good horse and a good road upon which to drive, if he be worthy of such a noble animal as the horse. When he starts for himself let him locate on a good road. There are always enough persons who are not thankful for advice, especially if it be in a book, who are looking for cheap land at the end of the hilly road.
Many farms are purchased by young men just starting out in life before judgment has been developed by experience, while men of mature years take in the whole problem, or rather series of problems, easily and at once. The novice would do well to make a list of the topics enumerated above, and add to them such others as appeal to his tastes or conditions and then study them, one at a time; in fact, there is nothing left for the young man to do but to make out a score-card upon which he records his judgment in numbers as he investigates each phase of the difficult problem of selecting a farm.
CHAPTER V
THE RELATION OF THE FARMER TO THE LAWYER
Doubtless more than one reader will be astonished, perhaps even horrified, to think that the writer should seriously suggest that there ought to be any relation whatever between the farmer and the lawyer.
It has come to be generally believed by many farmers that lawyers are at best a necessary evil, which it is well to avoid if possible; but, strange as it may appear, this very feeling is responsible for much of the litigation, with its attendant loss and sometimes ruin, in which too many farmers have been engaged. It is not the purpose of this short chapter to treat of the subject of law, or to try to lay down any rules to be blindly followed in legal matters. An old and learned lawyer, who had all his life been engaged in a country practice, once told me that the most prolific sources of litigation were alleged text-books of law, bearing such alluring and seductive titles as “Every Man his own Lawyer,” or “The Farmer’s own Law Book.”
Several years ago, a wealthy manufacturer of the state of New York sent a bright son to a law school, to help prepare him for a business career. At the end of his course the proud father was present at commencement, and, in the course of conversation with his son, said: “Well, John, I suppose you have learned a great deal.” John answered, “I have learned one thing which I think is of value; and that is, if any legal matter comes up in the course of my business, to consult the very best lawyer I can find.” That young man had really learned something worth far more than the cost of his course in the college of law.
There is, perhaps, no other of the so-called learned professions which is so exacting and which requires more devotion and study for its mastery. Some of the brightest men in this country have devoted a lifetime to the study and practice of law, only to have just entered its broad field as they have been compelled to lay down their work. How futile, then, would be the attempt to make every man his own lawyer! The real purpose of this chapter is to open the eyes of the farmer to the necessity of a closer relationship between himself and the lawyer,—the family lawyer, if you please, having his confidence to the same extent as that of the family doctor.
Most farmers desire a comfortable and a beautiful home, and it is to aid such that this book is written. Such a farmer would doubtless consult a builder or an architect as to the foundation, walls, plan and materials of the home to be constructed, and he would act wisely; but how many would think so far as to consult a lawyer as to the very foundation upon which his home and his future happy occupancy of it rest: the title to the farm. Too many times he is satisfied with the services of the village solons,—the shoemaker who is a notary public, the justice of the peace, or the pettifogger who daily overrules the supreme court or the court of appeals. Years after he has purchased his farm, he finds, perhaps, that some man has given a deed whose wife has not signed, and upon the death of the woman’s husband our farmer friend is confronted with a law suit; and he finds that this wife, who did not sign the deed, is entitled to dower in his farm, the use of one-third of its value at the time her husband gave the deed, for life. Such cases are frequent, and might easily be prevented by submitting an abstract of the title to a lawyer at a cost of $5 or less. The flaw in the title may be a mortgage or judgment, or a failure of all the heirs of a deceased person, somewhere along the chain of title, to join in the deed; all of which might be overlooked by the ordinary business man, and yet be readily detected by a lawyer.
Some day the farmer may be annoyed by the encroachment of a neighbor upon his farm, and, when in the midst of a litigation, find that the description of his farm is so defective that there is no relief. I have in my possession a deed of a valuable farm containing this description: “Beginning on the —— road at the south end of a pile of four-foot wood; running thence westwardly to a black cherry tree, thence northerly to a stake, thence easterly to a pine stump in the center of the road, and thence southerly to the place of beginning, containing 100 acres, more or less.” For fifty years this description has been copied, a score of times, by the various justices of the peace and notaries public of the neighboring hamlet, but fortunately, however, it has never devolved upon the owners to establish the boundaries of that farm. The first lawyer who got hold of this particular deed insisted upon such a description as would be tangible and certain. Not many years ago a mortgage on a valuable farm in Tompkins county, N. Y., was foreclosed, and during the foreclosure it was discovered that this mortgage covered about fifty acres of Cayuga lake, and what had been supposed to be a valuable mortgage was depreciated one-half by reason of the neglect and incompetence of the country conveyancer.