James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[380] in the labors of the farm for that single day only, returning early enough on Sunday to hear the flowing rhetoric of Mr. Chapin's morning sermon. From church—to the office and to work.

This farm has seen marvellous things done on it during the three years of Mr. Greeley's ownership. What it was when he bought it may be partly inferred from another passage of the same address: ‘I once went to look at a farm of fifty acres that I thought of buying for a summer home, some forty miles from the city of New York. The owner had been born on it, as I believe had his father before him; but it yielded only a meager subsistence for his family, and he thought of selling and going West. I went over it with him late in June, passing through a well-filled barn-yard which had not been disturbed that season, and stepping thence into a corn-field of five acres, with a like field of potatoes just beyond it. “Why, neighbor!” asked I, in astonishment, “how could you leave all this manure so handy to your plowed land, and plant ten acres without any?” “O, I was sick a good part of the spring, and so hurried that I could not find time to haul it out.” “Why, suppose you had planted but five acres in all, and emptied your barn-yard on those five, leaving the residue untouched, don't you think you would have harvested a larger crop?” “Well, perhaps I should,” was the poor farmer's response. It seemed never before to have occurred to him that he could let alone a part of his land. Had he progressed so far, he might have ventured thence to the conclusion that it is less expensive and more profitable to raise a full crop on five acres than half a crop on ten. I am sorry to say we have a good many such farmers still left at the East.’ But, he might have added, Horace Greeley is not one of them. He did not, however, and the deficiency shall here be supplied.

The farm is at present a practical commentary upon the oftrepeated recommendations of the Tribune with regard to “high farming.” It consisted, three years ago of grove, bog, and exhausted upland, in nearly equal proportions. In the grove, which is a fine growth of hickory, hemlock, iron-wood and oak, a small white cottage is concealed, built by Mr. Greeley, at a cost of a few hundred dollars. The farm-buildings, far more costly and expensive, are at the foot of the hill on which the house stands, and around them are the gardens. The marshy land, which was formerly very