BUYING A FARM. No one need be told at this day that good land is cheaper than poor--that the former may be bought at less cost than it can be made. Yet this, like most truths, may be given undue emphasis. It should be considered in the light of the less obvious truth that _Every farmer may make advantageous use of_ SOME _poor land_. The smallest farm should have its strip or belt of forest; the larger should have an abundance and variety of trees; and sterile, stony land grows many if not most trees thriftily: Even at the risk of arousing Western prejudice, I maintain that New-England, and all broken, hilly, rocky countries, have a decided advantage (abundantly counterbalanced, no doubt) over regions of great fertility and nearly uniform facility, in that human stupidity and mole-eyed greed can never wholly divest them of forests--that their sterile crags and steep acclivities must mainly be left to wood forever. Avarice may strip them of their covering of to-day; but, defying the plow and the spade, they cannot be so denuded that they will not be speedily reclothed with trees and foliage. I am not a believer that "Five Acres" or "Ten Acres" suffice for a farm. I know where money is made on even fewer than five acres; but they who do it are few, and men of exceptional capacity and diligence. Their achievements are necessarily confined to the vicinage of cities or manufacturing villages. The great majority of all who live by Agriculture want room to turn upon--want to grow grass and keep stock--and, for such, no mere garden or potato-patch will answer. They want genuine farms. Yet, go where you may in this country, you will hear a farmer saying of his neighbor, "He has too much land," even where the criticism might justly be reciprocated. We cannot all be mistaken on this head. There are men who can each manage thousands of acres of tillage, just as there are those who can skillfully wield an army of a hundred thousand men. Napoleon said there were two of this class in the Europe of his day. There are others who cannot handle a hundred acres so that nothing is lost through neglect or oversight. Rules must be adapted to average capacities and circumstances. He who expects to live by cattle-rearing needs many more acres than he who is intent on grain-growing; while he who contemplates vegetable, root, and fruit culture, needs fewer acres still. As to the direction of his efforts, each one will be a law unto himself.