The Arizona sentinel., 1888-08-04
CAUSES OF FAILURE.
Why Some Farmers Stay Poor and Never
 Accomplish Any Thing.

tried to answer the question of the
 stwelve-year-old" girl, as to why some
 farmers grow poor crops, while their
 neighbors grow good ones. And an-
 swering that, partly answered her sec- ond question, "why do some men work
 hard and never accomplish any thing?"
 I take it that she means by this ques-
 ton rather that they keep poor, than that they do not accomplish any thing. The causes vary with the individual,
 but may all be classed under the general head of bad management.
 Some of them are the same which pro- duce poor crops, for it is easy to see that all the profit there is in farming comes to those that grow crops above the average yield. But
 farmer may grow crops whose yield will be sufficient to be profitable, and yet there be many causes to keep him poor, and some of these I will enumerate. One is, that the farmer is unwise in disposing of his crops. do not mean by this that he drives to the railway station, and says to the grain buyer: 'I will bring you five hundred bushels of corn for twenty-five cents bushel," when he is paying fifty cents, for this would be too apparent, and would subject him to the ridicule of his neighbors or land him to the lunatic asylum. Many farmers do this however in moro laborious and roundabout way, by. feeding their grain to stock of such a character that it is impossible to real ize a profit from it. Sometimes this is on account of the breed of stock, but more often it is from a want of judg- ment and care in feeding.
 There are farmers by the thousand who are always overstocked, and whose stock is in consequence nearly always underfed. If the season proves fa- vorable one, they will usually after har- vest have enough feed round the fences and on the young grass and clover of the stubble fields to get their stock in good condition, but this IS largely at the expense of the coming season, for the pasturing of young grass and clover during the fall is nearly always detri- mental to its further growth and degel- opment. If you will visit these over stocked farmers in April you will find the stock thin, long-haired and bony, and in such bad condition that if they 01 @A1 of would take nearly or quite two months to bring them back to the weight of the previous October, but instead of having good pastures to turn them on, the scarcity of food compels them to turn them out to grub at the roots of the grass as soon as it makes a start that shows shade of green. That must be fortunate neighborhOOd which does not furnish distressing illustrations of this kind of misman- agement. But overstocking is not the only way in which farmers manage to feed at loss. One-third of the food given to cattle in the barn-yard where they are exposed to cold and storm and obliged to drink ice water, is virtually thrown away. Again there are large losses from feeding ill-bal- anced rations; some times ration so rich in fats as to produce indigestion and unthrift and consequent loss, or so poor as to enfeeble the animal. IT, regular feeding as to time and quantity is always unprofitable feeding, and yet it is often practiced.
 The farmer who allows the rays of the moon to shine through the cracks of rail fence on his cattle through the winter while they subsist principally on straw, is often unluclzy with his COWS at calving time, and the man who raises colts that are a drug in the market at four years old at $75 each, and whose cattle rarely weigh one thousand pounds or bring more than three cents a pound, is evidently not farming for profit, and as he must have some motive, it is probable that he does it for fun. There are other causes which help keep farmers poor. Many of them fail to make the farm produce any thing like what it might of the family supplies. It is easier to go to the grocer and butcher for fruits, meats, etc., than to produce them, and at the end of the year (for they generally buy on credit) they have bills to pay which absorb every dollar of the farm income and leave them to begin over again the old process of running up bills. The first use farm should be put to is to supply the family wants, as meats and breadstuff, eggs and poultry. Milk, cream and butter, fruits and vege- tables, should be so abundant and so excellent, of home production, that the family will need little else, and ordinarily surplus of them can be produced which will annihilate store bills. There are few farmers who live up to their privileges in this respect and the greater number fall 'amentably short.
 Another thing which helps to keep many farmers poor is habit of buy ing on credit, and the very fact that they can buy without the cash, leads them often to buy things which they could do without It requires moral courage to refuse to give or spend, when importuned to do so, but it would be an excellent rule to lay down, not to spend money till you have it, W1IdO F. BrO1U1a, in Ohio Farnler.
 Something New in Coffee.