Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-07-28
Stick TO Your Business.


study carefully the nature and capability
of his soil, his market, the facilities he
has for handling the crop, and in fact, all
that is connected with the successful grow
ing and marketing of whatever products
he proposes to make his specially. When
| say his specially" | do not mean that
mixed farming is not desirable or profit
able, for to Il certain extent all should
follow mixed farming. We should seek
to produce, at least rs far rs possible, the
family supplies, aud may have several
sources of income from the farm. For
example, the farmer may grow a certain
amount Of wheat for market, have from
twenty to thirty hogs to sell each year,
and raise few calves, so rs 20 spare one
or Two COWS or fat steers for the butcher,
and following such policy will in most
cases give the best results. What would
insist on, however, is that the farmer work
to some plan, although that plan may in
clude many details.
The farmer so situated that he must hire
all his work done except what he does
himself, should plan to save labor by the
use of improved farm machinery, and also
by growing the crops " hich require least
labor. The farmer who is in debt and
will need his entire income TO meet cur
rent expenses and payments, should grow
standard crops, such as there is always Il
demand for. Perhaps there have been
greater losses in farming from unwise
changing of plans than from all other
causes combined. read not long ago in
some agricultural paper, an item setting
forth the profits of small fruit culture
and advising every farmer to devote one
acre TO it. Some farmer, who knows nc
more about small fruit management than
he does about selling dry goods, sees this
item, and without taking into account his
facilities for marketing or anything but
the fact that somebody made five hundred
dollars from IN acre of Strawberries, goe:
into strawberry culture pell-mell. The
result is easily foretold.
| remember few years ago onion.
sold at two dollars bushel, and the seet
retailed at five dollars per pound. A MAJ
came twenty miles to me for seed to plan
five acres. | asked him if he had eve
grown onions. No" What land al,
you intending to SOW them on2 Well
it grew good corn last year." Have 20,
manure for it? NO" Well, my friend
said l., | should like to sell you the seed
but it will cost you one hundred dollar
for seed enough for five acres, and VOL
will not only lose this money. but You
ground rent and summers work, 70
onions cannot be grown on a soil in tn
condition yours is in. | had hard wCrl
to persuade him to abandon the job, bu
he finally did. put in half an acre tina
| ,,ioh In ,;tl,
labor produced fair crop, but the marke
was oyerstocked, and forty cents bushc
was the best offer l could get and rs thi
would not pay expenses | held them ii
spring, and then, AS could not sell ther
at any price, | dumped them into tn
manure pile.
live in a neighborhood where brool
corn is extensively grown. and those VIII
have followed the business regularly hav
done well at it, but once in every fe,
years the price goes up to II figure whic
makes it very profitable, and then larg
number of farmers with no experience i
managing the crop plant largely of it, IN
have known the price to fall in enc yea
from two hundred dollars to forty dollar
} per ton. As this latter price is below tn
cost of production under any circum
stances, and it will, of course, cost a
inexperienced farmer very much more t
get the crop ready for market than tn
one who understands it, it is easy TO Sc
that the new beginner is likely to ge
enough of it in growing one crop. AS
look back over my own experience 70
twenty-five years on the farm, can trac
more failures and losses to changes than t
all other causes combined, and it has bee
dear lesson learned in the school of ex
perience, TO stick TO regular system i
farming. But" do you ask, "shoul
we make no changes, but follow in tn
} same ruts worn by our ancestorsp" by n
means; but because your neighbor ha