TEN ACRES ENOUGH

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

But lands, or a fund secured by real estate, is unquestionably not only the highest security, but in the hands of heirs it is the only one likely to survive a single generation.

Hence the wisdom of the common law, which neither permits the guardian to sell the lands of his ward, nor even the court, in its discretion, to grant authority for their sale, except upon sufficient grounds shown: as a necessity for raising a fund for the support and education of the ward. Even a lord chancellor can only touch so sacred a fund for this or similar reasons. The common law is wise on this subject, as on most others. It is thus the experience and observation of mankind that such a fund is the safest, and hence the provisions of the law.

RESOLVED TO GO ESCAPE FROM BUSINESSCHOOSING A LOCATION

The last thirty years have been prolific of great pecuniary convulsions. I need not recapitulate them here, as too many of them are yet dark spots on the memory of some who will read this. Their frequency, as well as their recurrence at shorter intervals than at the beginning of the century, are among their most remarkable features, baffling the calculations of older heads, and confounding those of younger ones.

As the century advanced, these convulsions increased in number and violence. The whole business horizon seemed full of coming storms, which burst successively with desolating severity, not only on merchants and manufacturers, but on others who had long before retired from business. No one could foresee this state of things. I will not stop to argue causes, but confine myself to facts which none will care to contradict.

These disasters made beggars of thousands in every branch of business, and spread discouragement over every community. I passed through several of them, striving and struggling, and oppressed beyond all power of description. How many more the community was to encounter I did not know. But I conceived it the part of prudence to place myself beyond the circle of their influence before I also had been prostrated.

In spite of the losses thus encountered, I had been saving something annually for several years, when the stricture of 1854 came on, premonitory of the tremendous crash of 1857.

The trials of that incipient crisis determined me to abandon the city. I found that by realizing all I then possessed, I could command means enough to purchase ten to twenty acres, and I had grown nervous and apprehensive of the future. While possessed of a little, I resolved to make that little sure by investing it in land. I had worked for the landlord long enough. My excellent wife was now entirely willing to make the change, and our six children clapped their hands with joy when they heard that "father was going to live in the country."

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print