The modern equivalent of farming is day trading. There's that directness between what you reap and what you sow. You can't eat/spend the output of drawing or music. Art/programming are similar in that you have to sell labor while you figure out how to sell the output.
There's an element of luck involved in day trading, but back when you couldn't just look up how to farm there was probably a similar amount of logic and looking-to-the-gods to hope you had a bountiful harvest.