The Fat of the Land | Page 2

imperative and peremptory. The doctors
(and they were among the best in the land) said, "No more of this kind
of work for years," and I had to accept their verdict, though I knew that

"for years" meant forever.
My disappointment lasted longer than the acute attack; but, thanks to
the cheerful spirit of my wife, by early summer of that year I was able
to face the situation with courage that grew as strength increased.
Fortunately we were well to do, and the loss of professional income
was not a serious matter. We were not rich as wealth is counted
nowadays; but we were more than comfortable for ourselves and our
children, though I should never earn another dollar. This is not the
common state of the physician, who gives more and gets less than most
other men; it was simply a happy combination of circumstances. Polly
was a small heiress when we married; I had some money from my
maternal grandfather; our income was larger than our necessities, and
our investments had been fortunate. Fate had set no wolf to howl at our
door.
In June we decided to take to the woods, or rather to the country, to see
what it had in store for us. The more we thought of it, the better I liked
the plan, and Polly was no less happy over it. We talked of it morning,
noon, and night, and my half-smothered instinct grew by what it fed on.
Countless schemes at length resolved themselves into a factory farm,
which should be a source of pleasure as well as of income. It was of all
sizes, shapes, industries, and limits of expenditure, as the hours passed
and enthusiasm waxed or waned. I finally compromised on from two
hundred to three hundred acres of land, with a total expenditure of not
more than $60,000 for the building of my factory. It was to produce
butter, eggs, pork, and apples, all of best quality, and they were to be
sold at best prices. I discoursed at some length on farms and farmers to
Polly, who slept through most of the harangue. She afterward said that
she enjoyed it, but I never knew whether she referred to my lecture or
to her nap.
If farming be the art of elimination, I want it not. If the farmer and the
farmer's family must, by the nature of the occupation, be deprived of
reasonable leisure and luxury, if the conveniences and amenities must
be shorn close, if comfort must be denied and life be reduced to the
elemental necessities of food and shelter, I want it not. But I do not

believe that this is the case. The wealth of the world comes from the
land, which produces all the direct and immediate essentials for the
preservation of life and the protection of the race. When people cease to
look to the land for support, they lose their independence and fall under
the tyranny of circumstances beyond their control. They are no longer
producers, but consumers; and their prosperity is contingent upon the
prosperity and good will of other people who are more or less alien.
Only when a considerable percentage of a nation is living close to the
land can the highest type of independence and prosperity be enjoyed.
This law applies to the mass and also to the individual. The farmer,
who produces all the necessities and many of the luxuries, and whose
products are in constant demand and never out of vogue, should be
independent in mode of life and prosperous in his fortunes. If this is not
the condition of the average farmer (and I am sorry to say it is not), the
fault is to be found, not in the land, but in the man who tills it.
Ninety-five per cent of those who engage in commercial and
professional occupations fail of large success; more than fifty per cent
fail utterly, and are doomed to miserable, dependent lives in the service
of the more fortunate. That farmers do not fail nearly so often is due to
the bounty of the land, the beneficence of Nature, and the
ever-recurring seed-time and harvest, which even the most thoughtless
cannot interrupt.
The waking dream of my life had been to own and to work land; to
own it free of debt, and to work it with the same intelligence that has
made me successful in my profession. Brains always seemed to me as
necessary to success in farming as in law, or in medicine, or in business.
I always felt that mind should control events in agriculture as in
commercial life; that listlessness, carelessness, lack of thrift and energy,
and waste, were the factors most potent in keeping the farmer poor and
unreasonably harassed by the obligations