Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-04-27
TWO DROvERS' TALK.
Buying Grass and water-Stuaed Beeycs...
Domestic PhiIOsouyry

On the train from Pittsburg last evening.
| was much interested i'm talk between
TWO well known Western drovers, who
were returning from market. / took notes
ON the margin of my newspaper, and pre-
sent the cream thereof:
always try to buy good cattle, and
pay what they are worth to me. but L will
not buy a steer full of grass and water.
My stock are sold from the pasture early
in the morning. / sold one hundred and
seventy head of nice steers, by telegraph,
at nine cents per pound, home weight, [
took them out early and weighed them.
After nearly two years was compliments
ed on the transaction, and sold bunch of
cattle in hard market on my reputation
with that dealer. Yes, of course i could
have made five hundred dollars by Weigh
ing them full, but 1t would not pay. 1t is
as dishonest to sell stock full of grass and
water as to sell sand i'm sugar, or water in
milk
Do you feed much coru p,
" Not so much as the most cattle men.
! begin early before grass fails and feed
light, increasing AS the frost kills the grass
until they get what they will eat. / feed
in the field. The pasture, with the corn,
keeps the sap in the steer. You know
that the sap leaves the steer as fast as it
does the grass. Unless you begin to feed
early your cattle will shrink | never buy
cattle to feed unless their hair lies smooth
and soft; then keep them growing until
market them. j don't feed much corn at
present prices. / find it more profitable to
pasture and feed light. 1t is safer than to
buy, for no man can tell how to buy for
the present markets. l like to deal with q
man! Why, i have some neighbors who
have to be watched. | am obliged to 90
early and see the stock weighed, and then
sometimes they get the start of me and
salt their stock, so that j have to weigh
them full of water.n
That's just my experience, too. Don't
you know that people are becoming more
dishonest every day? There is a new kind
of honesty now. 1t is claw honesty y
to be just honest enough to keep inside of
the law. Why, when | go through the
country | see five men idle where one is at
work, except in the harvest season. I
meet farmers boys in their trotting wag-
ons, spinning along behind fast horse.
Paper collars line the wayside | tell YOU
the people are degenerating.n
. can't agree with you entirely. Ma
chinery has made q revolution in farming
that is blessing to the people They have
more time for improvement and pleasure.
Those paper collars, / find, are cheaper
than the linen ones / used to wear: besides
there are hundreds of poor women and
children employed making them. We
must not expect our children to do as we
we can give them better advantages than
we enjoyed. l try to learn my boys the
value of money-the value of one dOUd..-
and l teach them how TO trade, buy and
sell. don't expect them to make money
every time. If they make bad bargain.
tell them to be more careful, but it don't
do TO scold, for you know we make poor
trades sometimes. tell you that farmers
miss it by not interesting their children in
their business. Do it when they are young
before habits are formed. Don't let your
children think, Father has enough for
u.s. / have seen families ruined by de-
pending on what their parents had accu-
mulated. Another mistake that MANY
men have made is by not making partners
of their wives. i have often wished
knew as much as my wife. We have but
one interest at home; that is ours. When
my children want to start for themselves L
help them. l try to give them, while at
home, that experience which will enable
them to prosper"
Do you employ much help?"
Yes, considerable; most married men
to whom l furnish houses and garden
ground. | go to my merchant and tell
him my hands want orders for goods, and
that L will settle every thirty days; that
these orders must buy his goods as cheap
as cash. If find they do not 1 change
custom to another merchant"
Your plan is a good one for you, per-
haps, but never run in debt for anything.
If we needed goods We waited until we
could pay for them. 1t is the only safe
way to do. i owe my success to-
BridgeportW calls out the brakeman,
and thus ends my notes of the A" Drovers'
"-RarGI Ne,e Yorker.