"My country, 'tis of thee!": Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.Johnson, Willis Fletcher
History
"My country, 'tis of thee!": Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.
Johnson, Willis Fletcher
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- History
We especially need foreign farmers and workmen for the instruction of
our own farmers, and a large immigration of foreign agriculturists, if
they could be sprinkled among our agricultural communities in the
various States, would do more than any proposed legislation to improve
the condition of the American farmer. In his efforts to get beyond his
strength and resources, efforts which are natural in all new countries,
our farmer wastes enough to support another farmer. The Englishman, or
Frenchman, or German, or Swede, can teach him how not to do this. There
are a great many unprofitable farms near the city of New York, but when
you see a small piece of ground tilled to the full extent of its
capacity, and sending in large loads of fat vegetables to the city every
day, you may safely bet that the proprietor is a foreigner. In one
neighborhood very near New York city, a lot of discontented farmers are
envious of the prosperity of one fellow who is tilling only thirteen
acres, yet who has saved enough money to buy three houses in the city of
New York, each of which yields him a handsome income. And who is this
lucky fellow? A highly educated German, or a scientific English farmer?
No; he is a wretched Laplander, a man who is obliged to be ashamed of
the province which gave him birth, and who poses among acquaintances as
a Swede. He was a common farm laborer in his own country, and came here
with very little more money than would pay his board at a den near the
Battery for two or three days until some one should employ him. But he
had learned how to turn every scrap of soil to the best advantage, how
to make the most of all fertilizers, and how to get the largest number
of crops out of a given amount of soil in a given time. During the
agricultural depression of Great Britain a few years ago, which followed
several successive wet years, a number of English farmers sold out at a
sacrifice, came over here and located wherever best they could, and it
is astonishing to see how fast some of these men have got along, and how
well fixed they now are, as the saying is. They didn’t seem to be very
smart fellows. In a horse-trade, or a shooting-match, or a political
squabble, the best of them cannot hold his own for five minutes with an
ordinary American. But when it comes to farming so as to make every
resource of the estate count for all that it is worth, they leave the
American farmer far behind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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