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Show FARMING IS A REAL lil .SINESS E. R. Beach, writting in "Farm Life" gives the following good advice to farmers in general: One of the greatest troubles with the business of farming is that, too often it is not conducted on business principles. The cost of production is pure guess work in too many instances. in-stances. The marketing is haphazard haphaz-ard and piecemeal. The returns are accepted with thankfulness, no matter mat-ter how poor they may be. The farmer far-mer blesses his stars that he has got anything at all out of the mudle and hopes that he has made a profit, but whether he has or not he seldom knows accurately. The farm provides a living for himself and family in any case and if there are a few dollars over to put in the bank or spend at a festival he is satisfied. But the farmer should strive to do vastly better than to earn a mere living, nor should he be content with the mere, fact that he is not in debt at the end of the year. His labors and that of his family are worth a certain sum of money. The cost of seed, the annual rental value of the land, the estimated hire of his team and machinery, mach-inery, a percentage for the deprecia-tio deprecia-tio of stock, should all enter into his calculations. To be at all prosperous prosper-ous he must understand his business as thoroughly as a merchant does, and the only way to do this is to keep accurate accounts and balance his books at the end of the year." No farmer can be successful in his business who does not think while he works; that is, pay attention to what he is doing and do only what he is sure is right. Guess work wont do in any business, particularly in the cultivation of the soil, because its peculiarities of texture and chemical composition must be definitely known and its defects remedied by right fertilizing fer-tilizing and working to make it do its best. Some farmers do well in the same location and under the same conditions condi-tions under which others utterly fail. The difference, therefore, must be in the men and their different methods. It is worth while to know and adopt the methods which have brought success. suc-cess. There are farmers who are right up to date in methods of cultivation, culti-vation, fertilizing and so on, and nearly always have good crops, but fail to "make ends meet" and are compelled to borrow' money in the spring with which to buy seed and pay debts. The secret of the difficulty is waste about the farm. Impliments rust and rot out because little or no care is given in puting them away properly to protect them from exposure to the weather. No such show of negligence is found in any other business. |
