Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-06-20
True Economy i'm Farming.

The lesson of the times that saving is essential
to thrift, cannot well escape any class of pro-
duccrs Farmers have always understood the
importance OF economy, and now that others
are learning it, will pretty surely be more
strongly impressed with its necessity. Yet
it is true, that all who seek to practice econo'
my will pot 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 80 much taken
from their profits. Excepting the seed sown,
which they can see s.ringing up and perfect
ing its fruits, there is nothing in farm opera
tions which they regard as an investment.
The labor employed in cultiyasing and har'
vesting the crop, in building fences to protect
it, the barns to store it, the manure used to
enrich the soil, and the labor and money
merely expenses to be deducted from the crop
after selling, and therefore to be everywhere
diminished to the smallest possible margin.
1t is this view which in some sections Of the
country, and among old fogy farmers, makes
the agricultural population the most preju'
diced opponents Of progress and improvement
in farm methods and operations.
The true view Of farm economy seems to
US to be TO regard the farm as SO much fixed
capital, and all the improvements that can be
made on 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 9th
er things in farming besides seed sowing,
what Solomon wrote "There is that scatter
eth yet increaseth, and there is that with
holdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to
poverty" 1t is to this last evil that men in
these times are especially exposed. Money
is SO hard to get, that any use Of it except to
hoard it, seems like tempting loss.
But the very fact that money is 80 hard to
get at, is exactly the reason why it may safe.
ly be used for anything really necessary to
conducting ones business. Everything is
down to its lowest point. Whatever changes
there may be, must therefore be an advance.
Heretofore the market has been constantly
falling. Hence whatever was bought has lac.
cessarily sold at loss. This is the reason
why hen in all kinds of business have been
constantly losing money: The farmer is no
exception. He has for years been growing
crops at one rate of prices and selling them at
II lower rate. In almost every grain, the
price ca h year has been decline from that
Of the year before. He has each year paid
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 il so that natural con.
dition of things in which there is profit in
every form of well directed labor returns.
Farmers and producers of all kinds are ex.
hausted and dsheartened by continued lower ,
prices year by year, and arc constantly pre-
pairing to SOW and plow and produce less than
ever before. The very reasons that have pro-
duced this result are the very ones which
should have influenced farmers in the oppo'
site direction. 1t is pretty certain that it will
cost less to make crop in 1878 than it has
before since 1860, and this fact is the best
possible guarantee of profit to the producer.