Farmers' Gazette, And Cheraw Advertiser

From the Albany Cultivator.
HINTS TO YOUNG
FARMERS.
NO. I.

On leaving the paternal roof, to seek
my fortune in the wide world, when about
18 years of age, my father gave me this
parting admonition: "My son, take care
always to let well enough alone." The
occasion served to impress the advice
deeply on my mind, and amid the diversi-
fied scenes of thirty-five years, it has sel-
dom been forgotten; and I have reason
to believe it has had a very salutary influ-
ence upon my prosperity and happiness.
It has afforded, withal, something of a
standard by which to gauge the indiscre-
tions of others. How often has a disre-
gard, in others, to this maxim, reminded
me of the Italian epitaph: "I was well.
wished to be better, took physic, and here
I am." The true philosophy of happi-
ness is to depend on one's self for the bles-
sing—on the lively exercise of the vir-
tues which can alone confer it. The man
who is industrious and frugal, and who
scrupulously fulfils the relative and social
duties, whatever be his condition or pro-
fession, stands the best chance of enjoy-
ing a goodly portion of the comforts and
pleasures of life, and of perpetuating in
his children his habits and his virtues.—
While he who would live by the industry
of others, or who expects to find happiness
in the frail applause which wealth or os-
tentation may extort from those around
him, seldom succeeds in his desires.

Tom Tape was my schoolmate. Tom
had rather high notions from his boy-
hood; and persuaded his father to put him
to a merchant. In due time Tom became
the master of a shop of goods, was atten-
tive and fortunate, and acquired a snug
estate. Had he let well enough alone, he
might now have been the head man of our
town. But pride got the better of pru-
dence, and persuaded him that he might
do better at New York. He went there.
figured as a wholesale merchant, for which
neither his capital nor his experience were
adequate, for three years, and then came
the notice in the state paper for his cre-
ditors to show cause, &c.

Tjerck Wessel's farm joined mine. He
was one of our best farmers, and under-
stood the value of "come boys," as well as
any one. Good luck was so constantly
by his side, that he considered that any
man might get rich who had a mind to.—
But he could not let well enough alone—
he wished to DO BETTER. He therefore
removed to the village and opened a tav-
tern, and he had the promise of the justice
courts and of the stage custom. "Go
boys," did not improve the farm, and it
soon became neglected and unproductive.
By and by the courts were removed by
law, the stage went to the new hotel, and
the temperance era wound up the tavern
business. Tjerck has got back to the
farm, with habits very much altered, and
his fortune not a little impaired. Yet he
consoles himself, that he is not half so bad
off as

Joe Sledge, once our master blacksmith,
afterwards a merchant, and now a jour-
neyman. Joe was so famous for his
edge tools, that the people came to
him from all parts. He had his jour-
neymen and his apprentices, and was al-
ways present to oversee them, and to be
seen by his customers, as all master me-
chanics ought to be. Joe got rich, be-
cause he was adapted to his business, and
his business adapted to him. Joe thought,
with Sam Patch, that some things could
be done as well as others—and that be-
cause every body liked him as a black-
smith, they must like him as any thing
else, forgetting that it was his trade, and
not his mind nor his person, which had
brought him into notice. And as mer-
chant was rather more respectable than
mechanic, and withal a more tidy employ-
ment, he in fact sunk the blacksmith, and
became a dealer in tapes and sugars. It
fared with Joe as it generally does with
others who embark in new business, of
which they know nothing, after they have
arrived at mature manhood. Those who
had been bred to the business, proved suc-
cessful rivals, and the sheriff finally closed
his mercantile concerns, by selling the
entire effects of "a merchant unfortunate
in business." Joe insists to this day, that
if he had let well enough alone, he might
have been as well off as the best of his
neighbors.