The Portland daily press., 1878-02-18
The Lovers Fate.
BY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATRoP.
AGRICULTURAL.
True Economy in Farming.


The lesson of the times, that saving is es-
sential to thrift, cannot well escape any class
of producers. Farmers have always under
stood the Importance of economy, and now
that others are learning it, will pretty surely
be more strongly impressed with its necessi-
ty. Yet it is true, that all who seek TO prac-
tice economy will not succeed, and the just
inference follows that it is because they do
not properly understand in what economy
consists
To very many farmers, everything paid out
Is instinctively regarded as SO much taken
from their profits. Excepting the seed sown
which they can see springing up and perfect
ing its fruits, there is nothing in farm opera
tions which they regard as an investment.
The labor employed in cultivating and bar
vestng the crop, in building fences to pro-
tect it, and barns to store it; the manure
used to enrich tbs soil, aud the labor and
money needed to drain il, all seem to them to
be merely expenses to be deducted from the
crop after selling, and therefore TO be every
where diminished to the smallest possible
margin. 1t is this view which in some Sec
tons OF the country, and among old fogy
farmers, makes the agricultural population
the most preudiced opponents of progress
and improvement in farm methods and opera
tions.
The true view of farm economy seems to
me to regard the farm as so much fixed cap
ital, and all the improvements that can be
made upon it as an investment, which, if
wisely made, adds TO its profits. In this light
the more freely the farmer uses his money,
the faster it will return to him. 1t is true OF
other things in farming besides seed sowing,
what Solomon wrote: "There is that scatter
eth and yet increaseth, and there is that with
holdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to
IA Q. Il, s. 1nt
timesjfarmers are especially exposed. Money
is sohard to get, that any use of it excep. to
hoard it, seems like tempting loss.
But the very fact that money is SO hard to
get, is exactly the reason why it may safely
be used for anything really necessary to con-
Quoting ones business. Everything is down
to its lowest point. Whatever change there
may be, must therefore be an advance. Here
tofore the market has been constantly falling.
Hence whatever was bought has necessarily
sold at loss. This is the reason why men
in all departments of business have been con-
stantly losing money. The farmer is no ex-
ception. He has for years been growing
crops at one rate of prices, and selling them
at a lower rate. In almost every grain, the
price each year has been a decline from that
of the year before. He has each year paid a
higher rate of wages than the market for his
crops would warrant, because wages are fixed
by the price of products the previous year.
1t is pretty safe to say now that the bottom
has been reached, and if so that natural con-
dition of things in which there is a profit in
every form of well directed labor returens.
Wages are down lower than they can or
should remain, for the selfevdent fact that
they are reduced by the vast army of work
ers who depress the labor market because no
one will hire them. While thousands are
ready to work for barely enough to feed and
clothe them, it is inevitable that any change
will be for higher wages. Hence feel sure that
any farmers or other persons who will en-
ploy or judiciously direct the labor of Others
during 1878, will reap handsome profit.
Prices of produce will not and should not
reach those just following the war; but the
profit of production depends more on cheap
ening its cost than on enhancing its price.
Undoubtedly the tendency is all the other
way. Farmers and producers of all kinds are
exhausted and disheartened by continued low
prices year by year, and are consequently
preparing to sow and plow and produce less
than ever before. The very reasons which
have produced this result are the ones which
should have influenced farmers in the oppo-
site direction, 1t is pretty certain that it will
cost less to make crop in 1873 than it has
before since 1860, and this fact is the best
possible guarantee of profit to the producer.
Cor. Country Gentleman.