The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-08-23
A Business Farmer.

and business the intelligent and system
attic management of farm In this
sense the charge is too true. Many OF
our hardest working farmers accomplish
but little, and the reason is as plain rs the
nose on their face-they do not work with
their brains, as we'll as their hands; they
work helter-skelter, with little fore.
thought and no definite plan. Hence, as
a man of great executive talent once said
to us, "they make very hard work of .
very little and very poor work."
One of the most successful business men
we ever knew did little manual labor. By
the common observer he would have been
called lazy. He ran q factory, a store and
a farm, but never put his hand to pillow,
and seldom to pen. He was apparently
q gentleman of leisure, lay abed late in
the morning, was ever ready to talk with
his friends, and not unfrequently would
take game of chess with them. Though
not q manual worker, he kept up "a
terrible thinking" Before he went to
bed the plan for the next days work in
each department of his business was
mapped out and handed to the overseer,
who was held responsible not only for put
ting every workman where he would do
most good, but for seeing that the good
was accomplished. In like manner the
weeks work, the work for the month, sea-
son and year, was planned beforehand.
The generalization was his, the details
were left to his workmen. He, however,
went the "grand rounds" daily, when at
home, and knew exactly how things were
going. Everything was also daily re-
ported to the Office, and here, in the even
ing, he examined the record and compared
it with his orders, which were now re-
newed for the next day, and, if he was to
be absent, for the next week or month.
There was an example of man who,
without work or at least without manual
labor, accomplished wonders, and when
ne died left large possessions to his heirs
and, what is better, had built his own mon.
ument in the form of houses, factories
and farms, by which the public was ben
Gifted and his name perpeiuatcd.
Now, the executive talent which this
man possessed we do not expect every
farmer to inherit, certainly in its full ex-
tent, but we. do believe every husband
man Of ordinary ability has one talent in
this line which he ought to cultivate, and
thus develop himself and his farm. The
slip-shod method of managing most
farms il one reason why the farms are
not productive and the farmers are
not more forehanded. A carpenter may
hew away on a stick of timber all day,
and work hard, but unless he "hews to
the line" much of his labor and much Of
his timber are wasted. We have been
panied 10 see farmer NOW awhile In the
morning, then dig three or four bushels
of potatoes and take them to the village
grocer, with whom he would remain loaf
ing and talking till dinner time. At the
dinner table he would learn thai there
was no sugar for tea, and down to the
village he must 60 for q few pounds OF
sugar. On his return he would find the
cows had broken into the corn, and few
nails wanted to mend the fence. Setting
his wife to watch the cows, to the village
he would 20 again to buy q pound Of
nails. "Now," his wife would say,
You must let me have the horse and 60
shoppir 4 to pay for watching the cows. -
Thus the day was FILTERED away with
much fatigue of horse and man flesh, but
with little work accomplished, and that
little poorly. Ten chances to one the
hay that was moved in the morning was
left just 40 it fell to absorb the dews OF
the night. and wheE put into the barn
was % brown and almost as juiceless az
the barn boards. We have often noticed
the horses Of this farmer ct work one
hour ct one end of his farm, and the next
hour ct the other end, and few hours
could elapse without their tr0tting up and
down the long hill that intcrvened be-
tween the farm and village We need
mot add that the horses were soon worn
out with harl work, the farm went under
<h>nh ar L. e. and his q m