Allow me to take a small exception to what you said.

I know a number of farmers who are moderately wealthy. They are a minority, but they do exist.

My father-in-law, for example, started with nothing. He became a "hired hand" at the age of 14. He worked his way up to tenant farmer, and then in his early 40's bought his own farm. It was paid off rather quickly, because he had saved 2/3 of the purchase price. He bought extra land and prospered. He worked hard, as you mentioned, but showed a profit most years and made a good living in the bad years. He had plenty to live on when he retired and only sold the farm when his health failed in his early 80's. He is proof that hard work won't kill you. Smoking got him at the age of 84. His wife proves that hard work won't kill women either. A non-smoker, she is still alert, vigorous, and healthly at 87. There are others like them in Tennessee, but a large percentage of farmers here work hard all their life and wind up with little besides land to show for it.

Farming, however, is not for me. I grow a garden and that's it.
Howard

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> I am saying that this picture leaves a lot out. The fact, for example, that your traditional family farm is, and always has been, a subsistance kind of operation. You don't tend to make any amount of money while you're doing it. Every penny must be reinvested. If you're lucky, and land values go up you may be able to retire comfortably when you sell the land but while you're a farmer you scrimp and save to do normal maintenance and pay the morgage.
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> Rivikah