The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1858-12-22
-SPLTNTERS AND FAG-ENDS.

SPLINTERS AND FAG-ENDS,
GATHERED reoArnE rIcEINGs OF EyERY.pAYmrr
A GRAIN SrEcUrArIoN.- The Chicago
J,orwI relates the experience Of a nov
ice ia sposu.ations in grain;
Generally speaking, wheat is very
good grain. Il shows well in the field
and in statistical reports; it loo,ss well in
stacks, and especially well in ihe gronar-
les and when well ground, mcthodically
kneadcd, iudiciously batod ami properly
Drowned and but'ercd into toast, there is
no Sne who will speak moro respectfully,
not to say enthusiastically, Of the vegcto-
bic than [ will For [ am, in the main,
4 man too well bred 10 do otherwise.
But, as IN article ofcommerce, n medium
for speculation, I am emphatically down
on the whole institution, both "wintcr"
and "spring;' the one has proven "the
winter of discomfort" while the other has
"sprung" trap on me like that projected
over unwary birds which nibble at the
same bait. These remarks may seem Sc
we're, but they drop as naturally from me
as the kernels would from head of wheat
that has been well threshed.
As everybody knows, am "the son Of
poor but respectable parents" started
in life with this talismanic maxim Tor
money making; Buy when every one is
selling sell when every one is buying.
We'll, some few weeks since wheat, which
had been very buoyant, suddenly fell,
Every one was selling had littlo
money, and confding in my golden rule,
pitched in, and bought at eighty-fve.
Very soon the staple commodity dropped
to sixty-eight. Now, thought T. is the
time to get margin j." so mortgaging
the first lot l bought more And III
venture to say that my old mother never
prayed so dovoutly for her bread to rise
as l did wheat. But still it dropped
The fault, they said, was in the East Tex
cuse the pun, if the pun is obvious until,
\ as it still kept dropping, l thought it my
luty to 90 into Chicago and put stop
it. Tho first greeting that met me as
? Isteppcd into the fremont was q telegram
on the bulletin boarl-"Wheat IS fat
Wheat probably was fat enough, hut
this announcement strucl; me as being ra-
Their a sharp truth, At II = I went
down on Change" 1t is needless to say
that I found things materially changed
since had bought Buyers were offer
ing ffty-fve; everybody appeared to be
buying therefore, following out my aph-
orism, sold The result may be summed
up thus;
Two months since, had money and no
wheat. Subsequently, I had wheat and
no money. Now by the mass, have nei-
Their! The second lot was a poor lot
as poor, in fact, as the second edition Of
Pharaoh's kline, since it swallowed the
first, But l bought it to make margin
and made it. think that most opera
tors will concur with me in the following
conclusion
That to buy at "cighty-fve" cad sci
at "ffty-Gve" will not paw ehless a man
does very large business. That wheat,
when it begins =, lall, is a very long while
in reaching the bottom. That when it
once begins to heat, it very soon becomes
to- hot to hold. That, after all, the sur
est way to make money in wheat is to
plant in good soil. And lastly, that
man going into the wheat market, with
even very small capital, if he is indus
trious and Perseyeres, may very soon sue
coed in owing more than it is probable he
will ever be worth,