The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-07-17
Where the Profit Comes From.

NOT many farmers know enough
about the details of cost and expendi-
ture in their own business, Or bestow
upon the subject sufficient study and
thought, to know where the profit of
farming comes from, or what direc-
ton their efforts should take in order
to increase that profit. The philoso-
ply of farming is little understood or
written upon. Most of us stumble
alorg, working by guess or "rule of
thumb" without. any clear compre-
hension of the elements with which
we must deal in making the farm pay,
far less with any real mastery over the
elements.
We set it down as a principle,
though few may accept it as such at
first, that-unless for a short time
upon new sofia farmers profits do
not come from his land. 1t is very
easy for man to be land-poOr."
That is what ais most farmers at this
present time. If it were established
as a law that every young farmer
should begin with five or ten acres,
and be allowed no more land until he
had brought that to a high state of
profitable productiveness, we should
see very different farming from that
which now surrounds us on every side.
Land, indeed, is only valuable as it
affords an opportunity to apply labor,
and the accumulated product. of labor
capital. Without these, land will
yield no profit; and just in proportion
as labor and capital are judiciously
expended uron it can land be made a
means of adding to our wealth-that
is, to "pay."
It is mainly for lack of the knowl-
edge of this factor of faith in it
and for want of the practical knowl-
edge how to act upon it that farming
fails to pay, or pays poorly. There is
nothing that so thoroughly demon
strates a poor farmer as to hear one
say he "cannot afford" to employ the
labor or the money necessary for the
thorough tillage and handling of his
crops. One who thinks thus and can
not be made to think differently, ought
to quit farming-and the quicker he
quits it the better it will pay him.
1t is pitiful to see how men act in
these matters. They nave not the least
faith in honest dealing with the soil.
Their effort is to cheat the land-cheat
nature-out of a living. They have as
little faith in the natural reward of
good agriculture as sinners have in the
spiritual reward of good moral Gull
ture. They fear to trust the soil to re-
turn them fair pay for good treatment.
They fear that If they should properly
manure and properly till field, they
hnt l.
Why is this timidity? Part of it, no
doubt, comes from conscious incapa-
city for the business in which they are
engaged. But this is not always SO.
Men who are capable of raising large
crops, and raising them with profit,
will not habitually follow that kind of
farming. Having done it once-hav-
ing dared once to sufficiently fit q field
for grain, or roots or grass, and having
received their reward, they seem to
stand frightened at the result, to doubt
its reality, to regard it as though it
was a prize drawn in a lottery, an
event of chance, that could not be re-
lied on to repeat itself. 1t is some
times two or three years before they
summon courage to renew the expert
.nonU 0oinoIlueS Cncy never repeat
it, but content themselves for the rest
OF their lives with telling about that
big crop of corn, or hay or potatoes
they once raised.
Now, this is not farming. Farming
is legitimate business; not hazard
GUS speculation. We have promise
which can be relied upon that seed.
time and harvest shall not fall, and 4
v orld-wide record Of experience to
show that the faithful, earnest labor Of