"And nobody can do that nowadays. Farms don't pay."
"Ploughing and sowing don't pay, but brains and money pay wherever found
together."
"What, on a farm?"
"Why not, sir? You have only to go with the times. Observe the condition
of produce: grain too cheap for a farmer because continents can export
grain with little loss; fruit dear; meat dear, because cattle can not be
driven and sailed without risk of life and loss of weight; agricultural
labor rising, and in winter unproductive, because to farm means to plough
and sow, and reap and mow, and lose money. But meet those conditions.
Breed cattle, sheep, and horses, and make the farm their feeding-ground.
Give fifty acres to fruit; have a little factory on the land for winter
use, and so utilize all your farm hands and the village women, who are
cheaper laborers than town brats, and I think you will make a little
money in the form of money, besides what you make in gratuitous eggs,
poultry, fruit, horses to ride, and cart things for the house--items
which seldom figure in a farmer's books as money, but we stricter
accountants know they are.
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