Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1884-10-25
Business Methods on the Farm.

N. Y. Times.
Farmers might do worse than take
a little note of how other business men
manage their affairs, and learn some.
thing from their observations. A
farmer should not be like clam and
shut himself up within the hard she'll
of his own ways and notions, nor think
it matters nothing to him how the
world moves, or to the world how he
gets along. He may learn agood deal
by studying the ways of people in
cities that will do him good in his own
business. For instance, if he should
60 into city workshop and find one
or two men at work in one corner, but
all the rest of the great building empty,
or, If filed, the machines running
empty or wearing out with dust, he
would be struck with wonder and
amazement. If he were to interview
the owner, whom he would certainly
think to be crazy, and were told that
he had not sufficient means to furnish
his factory, that he could not afford to
hire labor, or that he was doing we'll
enough, that he made living, and
was well satisfied with what he was
doing, our farmer would be more and
more amazed. That is, if he were not
struck with a similarity between the
case of this man and his own when his
thoughts were turned to his own farm,
where the larger part of his fields was
overrun with weeds; where the crops
yielded little more than the seed for
want of tillage or fertilizers; where
half his COWS failed to pay for their
feed where his crops were destroyed
by insects, his land poisoned with stag
nant water for want of drainage, and
all this was excused because he could
not afford to hire labor, or buy fertili-
zers, or procure good stock, or that he
was doing well enough.
If we could only see ourselves as
others see us, how different we should
act! 1t helps US thus to see ourselves
to watch closely other men. 1t helps
the farmer to become acquainted with
other business men by whose industry
and enterprise markets are found for
farm products. Competition, too,
spurs him to greater efforts or to better
methods, but, unless he knows more
about what his competitors are and
what they are doing than the bare fact
that they are growing wheat more
cheaply than he is, or are making SUBJ
stitutes for his butter and cheese from
cheap lard and tallow, he will be poor.
ly able to keep ahead in the race, and
will find himself left behind. In OBJ
serving the ways OF other business men
a farmer will find that each man
makes his special business his life's
work, and studies it thoroughly inside
among his own machinery and work,
and outside among his customers, both
actual and prospective, and sticks to it
through good times and bad; that
economy in every way is most strictly
enforced, no work or means of any
kind being wasted, no opportunity
missed, no dead stock being carried,
and everything that does not pay be-
ing inexorable and Immediately cut
of. And if he learns no more than
this lie will at least discover that in a
general way the business man who
should run his store or workshop as
the majority of farms are run would
very soon be without any business at
all. No doubt it is true that a large
proportion of business men fail to suc-
coed. But all these failures are due
to the want of the strict business meth
dds which alone insure success, and il
is simply an indication that the farm.
er's business is an excellent and profita.
bic one that so few farmers fail in it,
rather than their methods ore the best.
So that we see very few farmers sue
coed in other businesses, while a great
many business men make excellent and
successful farmers,