Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1873-03-28
How to Save Money in Farming,

While the snow covers the ground
and the evenings are long it is
good time to make up plans for the
summer campaign. Take look at
the stock in the barn, and see if Won
have not some animals which could
lie disposed of with profit. Are the
cows tirSt-rate i'll every particular,
and do they pay a good profit Oh
their cost and keep, or do they
scarcely pay for the food they eat,
leaving nothing over? We think
that full one-half of all the cows
kept by farmers do no more than
pay for the food consumed during
the year; consequently the owners
are actually losing money, because
the animals depreci;,te in value as
they grow old. Now, the way to
save money in keeping stock Is to
have no animal that is not either
increasing in value in proportion to
the amount Of food consumed and
labor expended in taking care of it,
or returning an equivalent in labor
performed, as with work horses, or
in milk as with cows.
The only true way of ascertaining
this fact is by keeping an account
Of expenditures and receipts, which
we fear is seldom practiced with
those who fail to make money IN
farming. Merchants and other
,rades,nen usually take an account
of stock at least once 4 year, and
know to cent how they stand in
the world financially, and the future
operations are planned in accord
ance with past experience, and if
there is need of cutting off any par
ticnlar branch of trade, or econo-
MIXING in any way, it is done; but
the farmer alone seems to be the
victim of luck, seldom knowing
whether he is prosperous or other
wise until it is too late.
1t is well to draw up plan Of
farm operations for the coming sea
son, and it is far better to have them
little too restricted than TOO com
prehensive, because bid weather
sometimes intervcnes and puts one
behind, especially in the SPRING
Better put in one acre OF potatoes,
and do it SO well that the yield will
be four hundred bushels to the acre,
than to 90 over four or five acres
for the same quantity. Practice the
same system with all farm crops,
and you will be surprised to sec
how easy it is to save labor as well
as money by farming. We are
quite certain that if our farmers
would give this condensing system
OF farming thorough trial, we
should hear less of disastrous sea-
SONS and the appropriateness of
farming. They would not stop AT
good crops, but their horses, COWS,
sheep and hogs would soon have to
be of the best breeds. No cows
would be kept from the milk of
which two or three hundred pounds
of butter or its equivalent in cheese
could not BE- made in season. 1t
costs no more to feed and care for
one OF our best COWS than the very
poorest, and the same is true With
all other kinds of stock, and as a
rule the most worthless are the most
expensive to keep.
A farmer would think he was
badly swindled IT he had to pay
twenty-five dollars more than his
proportion of taxes; still there are
thousands OF animals kept by these
same farmers, each of which costs
fully twenty-five dollars per annum
more than it yields the owner or
advances in value. This is but one
of the many leaks in farming which
would not be tolerated III amy other
kind Of business.
If field is so poor that it will
not pay good profit on the cost OF
cult, ating, let it alone or put it in
proper condition for producing
good crop. A man ought to know
better than to waste his time in
working soil that yields 70 return