“DOES FARMING PAY?”

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 27, 30 September 1893, Page 3

“DOES FARMING PAY?”

On this point a contributor to the Melbourne Leader observes :—“Does farming pay ?” “Well, I bave read some very learned articles on tbe subject, but I think it boils itself down pretty well to this conclusion, “ it all depends on tbe farmer.” I bave watched tbe careers of men who went on the land with little beyond tbe determination, as tbe Scotch saying has it, to put a stout hert to a stey brae, and to-day they are well off; I’ve seen others begin with a good deal of money, and now they are broke. I came across a cynical old fellow the other day, who said, ‘ If I were writing in the paper about how to succed in farming, I’d put it something like this : —Buy everything’ you eat, drink, and wear. , Buy from hawkers or get trust from the storekeeper. Do not think of growing food for yourself or family. If you should have an extra good season and make a profit, invest the money at once in more land, and borrow some money upon it, if you can, for the purchase of a buggy suitable for so prosperous a farmer as yourself. Act as if you were a bank manager, and adopt “ style furnish your house with Austrian bentwood furniture, cane-bottomed seats that will last a week or two ; don’t get anything substantial and good—that would be too countryfied. Hire all your labour, and send your boys and girls to fashionable boarding schools ; they will be gentlefolk by and by, and treat their old father and mother with contempt. Don’t keep any poultry, they spoil the hay. Don’t keep cows—they have to be milked. Don’t keep pigs—so much trouble to feed them. Don’t cultivate a garden —vegetables can be bought from the Chinamen. Don’t grow any fruit, it is hard work to dig, and the boys would only steal the produce. Strictly confine your . attention to growingwheat and hay, and after a few years of toil and misery you may go down to the city and wear a pepper and salt suit provided. gratuitously by the people who ate the bread grown by you at a loss.’ ‘ And what d’ye expect a man would raise on land after that fashion p’ I asked him. To which he replied : ‘ Raise, well what a good many have done who have tried it, ‘ a good healthy mortgage-’ ”