Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1874-12-25
REDUCE THE EXPENSES.


rule in the farmers family the things which
please the eye and crafty the finer tastes,
instead Of being too plenty are far too
scarce. The pretty ribbon or flower Tor the
bonnet, or other ornament, dear to the heart
of woman, crafty desires as legitimate and
heavenly as the bodily wants which are min
istercd to by what are called substantial
things, food and clothing. God meant that
we should enjoy things Of beauty. He fur
nished them throughout nature, and he gave
us the instinct to desire and enjoy them.
But there are other expenses which do not
yield any return Of comfort or enjoyment,
and which those noble organizations Of work
ingmen, the Patrons and the Sovereigns, are
laboring to reduce. As an illustration we
speak Of st. JohnSbury, though the same rea-
soning applies TO all communities.
We have before shown that in st. Johns
bury, with as much surrounding popula ton
as st. Johnsbury itself contains, one man out
of every twenty IS a merchant, man who
does not produce anything, and adds nothing
to the value of anything He pays his store
rent, fuel, lights, taxes interest, insurance,
house and family expenses, minister tax aud
pew rent, school expenses, team aud travel
ing expenses, and loses quite sum annually
in poor accounts, all out of the profit on the
merchandise that nineteen families buy Of
him. Can it be otherwise than that those
profits are large? Two thousand families
supporting by a direct, though disguised,
tax, one hundred families and we have set
the number lower than it will bear. Is it
strange that working men aud women should
seek some way to avoid this enormous tax
1t is only strange they should not have done
it before, when we come to look at the great
saving they can make.
Go into any of the largest stores, and take
seat Perhaps you discover one or two
customers examining some small article Of
goods, but what else do you see Perhaps
three or four thousand dollars worth of goods,
all subject 10 taxes, interest, insurance, de.
probation, rats, theft aud decay, and those
few customers, if they purchase anything,
are, for the time being, paying all these ex-
peuses on that whole stock of goods, aud
even more. They pay the wages of perhaps
two or three idle clerks, the whole wages
and travelling expenses Of some Boston drum
mer who is running his oily tongue and dis
playing his samples to the proprietor whose
eye is open for something that he can make
money on. Nor is this all, you take up the
village paper, and you find this merchants
advertisement spread down through half
or whole columR, and it is not unusual to
see three.column ad, the lines scattered
too far apart to be neighbors, and the whole
telling such an abominablc lie that nobody
pretends to believe it. Aud that costs mon.
ey, not any more, we'll guarantee, than the
printer ought to have, but great deal more
than consumers want to pay for. The coun-
Gil or the grange spend no money in adver-
Using, and the manufacturers or wholesale
importer Of whom they buy can reach every
grange and council in the Union without
paying cent for newspaper advertising. If
a manufacturer has new lot of goods which
he can offer at such rates as will make it an
object to buy, single postal card, costing
one cent, will suffice to inform the state
agent Of the Vermont Patrons and through
him reach larger constituency than can be
reached by a column advertisement in any
paper in the state which would cost 500 or
more for year. One style of advertising,
however, will pay; that is, where the adver-
tissr states things just exactly as they will
be found, and in every practical case gives
his prices. That is what the public want
to know, but this old story about "the larg-
est stock of goods ever brought into Chris
tendon" is hardly interesting.
1t is these expenses that the Patrons and
Sovereigns are refusing to pay, and they are
doing it on the merchants own principle Of
buying where they can buy the cheap est,
and it their skill in buying is not always
equal to that Of the shrewd tradesman, they
certainly have skill enough TO avoid a large
share of his expenses.
All these reasons for cooperative purchas.
ing, direct from the manufacturer, are
equally valid as against the establishment of
stores by the Patrons and Sovereigns The
advantages of their system of trading all de-
pend upon the avoidance Of these expenses
Of the merchant. OF course they will want
place to distribute their goods when they
arrive, and an agent to attend to this bust
ness, and perhaps it may prove best at
times, for the sake Of getting in unbroken
packages, to order from markets few pounds
more of sugar, tea, &C., than have been Or
dered in the grange or council, in order to
have it come in even barrels or chests.
But further than this we trust these socie-
ties will not go in to the bookkeeping BUSH
ness.
Small quarters can be rented in any place
and an agent employed at a stipulated price
per day to attend to the business. He may
have it understood that on a certain after
noon of each week he will be on hand to
take orders and deliver goods. If the busi-
ness is found to require more time, he can
give day, two, or more days, so that the
purchaser will only be paying for the actual
work performed, and not paying wages to
several -elcrks the whole week because one
day in the week there is all the work they