Existing comment:
The Business of the Farm:
Nineteenth-century farmers, like those today, wore many hats. They needed knowledge of geology, horticulture, animal husbandry, and the latest equipment. They had to understand loans, banking practices, and the country's overall economic climate. Strong physical and mental constitutions also helped farmers meet the challenges of farming year after year.
Grant, Dent, and their neighbors fought wet springs, dry summers, early frosts, illness, and a nationwide economic depression during the late 1850s. Unable to recover from these conditions, Dent and Grant sold off their livestock and farm equipment in 1859.
"My intention is to raise about twenty acres of Irish potatoes, on new ground, five acres of sweet potatoes, about the same of early corn, five or six acres cabbage, beets, cucumber pickles & mellons and keep a wagon going to market evry day... If I had an opportunity of geting [sic] about $500.00 for a year at 10 pr. cent I have no doubt but it would be of great advantage to me."
-- Ulysses Grant, to his father Jesse, December 28, 1856. |