Daily Kennebec journal., 1878-04-30
TRUE ECONOMY IN FARMING.

The lesson of the times, that saving Is
essential to thrift, cannot we'll escape any
class of producers. Farmers have al
ways understood the Importance of econ
| omy, and now that others are learning it,
will pretty surely be more strongly i'm
pressed with its necessity. Yet it is true,
that all who seek to practice economy will
not succeed, and the just inference follows
that it is because they do not properly un-
derstand in what economy consists.
To very many farmers. everything paid
ont is instinctively regarded as so much
taken from their profits. Excepting the
seed sown, which they can see springing
up and perfecting its fruits. there is MOTH
ing in farm operations which they regard
as an investment. The labor employed in
harvesting and cultivating 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 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
sections of the country. and among old
iogy farmers, makes the agricultural pop.
ulation the most prejudiced opponents of
progress and improvement in farm opera
tiens and methods.
The true view of farm economy seems
to US to be to regard the farm as so much
fixed capital and all improvements that
can be made on it as an investment which
if wisely made. adds to its profits. In
this light, the more freely farmer uses
his money, the faster it will return to him.
1t is true of other things in farming be-
sides sowing, what Solomon wrote -
There is that scattereth yet increaseth,
and there is that withholdeth 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 so hard
to get. is exactly the reason why 1t may
safely be used for anything really neces-
sary to conducting ones business. Every
thing is down to its lowest point. What
ever change there may be, must therefore
be an advance. Heretofore the market
has been constantly falling. Hence what
ever was bought has necessarily sold at
loss This is the reason why men in all
kinds of business have been constantly
losing money. The farmer is no excep-
ton He has for wears 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 de-
cline from that of the year before. He
has each year paid higher rate of wages
than the market for his crops would war
rant. because wages are tiIed by the price
of products the previous year.
1t is pretty safe TO say now that the bot
tom has been reached, and if so that nat
ural condition of things in which there is
profit in everv form of well-drected la
Dor returns. Farmers and producers OF
all kinds are exhausted and disheartened
by continued lower prices year by year.
and are constantly preparing to sow and
plough and produce less than ever before.
The very reasons that have produced this
result are the very ones which should have
influenced farmers in the opposite direc-
tion. 1t is pretty certain that it will cost
less to make crop in 1878 than it has be-
fore since 1860. and this fact Is the best
possible guarantee Of profit to the pro-
ducer.