ABSTRACT
Farming, wherever carried on, was a complicated business involving many different operations and requiring many skills. The farmer was a creator of capital and an investor, holding down his standard of consumption so as to be able to make improvements, investing his own life and labor, and the labor of his hired men and slaves, in the land. When a farm reached the point beyond which additional labor and capital could not economically be expended upon its further development, it might still increase in value if its situation were in demand and the fertility of the soil were maintained by good practices. Favorable economic conditions in the fifties enabled them to buy mowers, reapers, improved plows, hay rakes, corn shellers, and numerous other machines that permitted larger operations with less drudgery. Diversification was being brought about, though very slowly, through the growing recognition that in it lay the solution for some of the major ills of the farmers' economy.
