Relation between Soils and Skulls—The Secrets of Successful Farming—Why go to Alaska when there are Gold Mines at the Home—Jute, a Keyword to Fortune—A Million Dollars in this Suggestion—What Ignorance Costs the American Farmer—A Rival of King Cotton—Doubling One’s Money in Fowls—How to get a Big Apple Crop every Year—$6,000 a Year to go to South America—Or, If you want to Go West, Uncle Sam will give you a Slice of Land—Onions the “Open Sesame” to Fortune—Breaking Records with Potatoes—Yankees and Hickory Nuts—How “Plunger” Walton made a Fortune in Two Years—The Great Elmendorf Stock-Farm.
We often hear it said that there is no money in farming. On the other hand, there are few occupations in which there is so much money, if the work is carried on in the right way. The trouble is that people often think it takes little intellect to be a farmer. The truth is just the reverse. To get returns out of the soil there must be brains in the skull. We know a farmer on Long Island with less than sixty acres of land who has acquired a fortune in fifteen years of close application to the problems of the farm. He has found the secret of knowing how to make Nature give down her milk. Every foot of land is under cultivation, and although he employs often as many as two score of men, he gives every part of the work his personal inspection. Further than this, his three secrets of success, he tells us, are, What, When and Where—What to plant, When to plant, and Where to market.
Do you know it is a fact that $500,000,000 more was received from the sale of crops this year than last? What do you think of that, you Klondikers who suffer hardships in the Alaskan mountains for the sake of a little gold which, after all, you will probably never get? If the gold output of the newly discovered regions of the far North reaches this year $10,000,000—a most liberal estimate, and probably two or three times the actual yield—remember that the soil right here at home, with one-half the labor and none of the risk of life, has yielded fifty times that amount. And this is not the actual yield, but only the surplus over and above what the fields gave the year before. Five hundred millions of gold more than last year dug out of the soil—think of it! In the following examples we only give the byways of farming—that is, what can be done, by the cultivation of a single product, and not what may be accomplished in the regular way. Of course, much more can be made by the raising of several staples, and by a systematic rotation of crops.
711. Substitute for Silk.—Send to the Department of Agriculture for jute seed. Jute will take dye as a sponge takes water, and it has a gloss which makes it capable of being used in combination with silk so as to defy detection. Remember that when a thing can be made to look like some other thing at one-twentieth the cost, it opens the way for mines of wealth. A word to the wise is sufficient. Jute needs a warm climate, and you must go to the Southern States.
712. Washington Pippins.—They are known as Newtown Pippins, but let us give you a secret. The soil of the State of Washington is so adapted to this apple that you can raise from one-fourth to one-half greater crops than in any other State. Apple raisers, remember this.
713. Dorsets and Downs.—Fancy breeds of sheep! Two hundred million dollars worth of wool from these breeds were imported last year. That was what we paid for a name, and for our ignorance in not knowing that we can raise just as good sheep here. Reader, if you want a share of this $200,000,000, study a good book about sheep farming, purchase a few of these two famous breeds, and put the wool on the market as the genuine Dorset; for so it is. The place counts for not one atom—only the breed.
714. American Cheese.—Here again we are foolishly playing into the hands of foreigners, paying $1,500,000 every year for that which can be produced equally as good and cheap at home. Everybody should know that there is no better spot on the globe for the kind of pasture that makes delicious cheese than Delaware County in the State of New York. We pay these millions to foreigners because we do not produce enough at home; but here, within two or three hours freightage of the metropolis of the Western World, we have the best cheese-producing country on earth.
715. Business Apples.—We call them Business Apples because they will mean a good business for you if you are wise enough to undertake their culture. Go to Missouri and try the Ben Davis variety. The soil of that State is the best for that kind of apple. A man there set out two hundred trees, and last year sold $450 worth of Ben Davis apples. At the same rate, one thousand trees, covering about five acres, should bring you $2,500.
716. Fortunes in Poppies.—Here is another new idea. France has caught upon it; why may not the farmer of this country? Five hundred thousand pounds of opium are sold every year in our drug stores, but it has been thought that the drug could only be raised in the East. This is a mistake. The French farmers sold 5,000,000 francs worth last year. It yields a net profit of $25 an acre and requires little culture. It may yet become a rival of King Cotton in our Southern States, but those who are wide-awake enough to be the first in the field will reap the lion’s share of this new bidder for our enterprise.
717. The Capon Farm.—One hundred per cent. capons! This is the actual experience of a raiser. He operated on forty, sent them to market and realized $39.24. He estimates the cost of keeping at less than fifty cents each. There are few investments in which the gross proceeds are double the cost. In addition, the raising of capons may be carried on with the ordinary poultry farm.