St. Paul daily globe., 1895-09-30
THE RIGHT ECONOMIES.


where he is not so from choice,
he looks about on his surround
ings, bare of what city dwellers
regard as comforts, and asks: What
would you have? Especially irritat-
ing to him are these suggestions
when they come from one not en-
gagged in his industry If he listens
at all it is with a suppressed i'm
patience, and he is much more apt
to suggest to the counselor that he
would be doing better were he mind
ing his own business. But it hap
pens, with sufficient frequency to es-
tablish its utility, that valuable hints
not familiar with its technicalities.
There rs an advantage sometimes in
being outside, where processes can
be watched without the absorption in
the details of the operator. The on
locker in a game of checkers or chess
sometimes sees moves that escape
the players.
So the G o ventures to talk
to it's farmer readers about farm
economy. Not that economy which
is frugality; a saving and pinching
for the mere sake of accommodating,
but that economy which recognizes
the wisdom of judicious spending
that greater returns may be had for
toll; the economy that increases pro-
duction without increase of cost, and
the economy that stops waste and
turns it into profit. This is merely
applying to the farm, which is only
great mandatory of many prod
ucts, the lessons those other manu-
facturers who work in shops and
mills long ago learned and profited
by the learning and it's practical use.
1t is not possible, Of course, to exer-
cise the same care of material in a
shop that is rooted by the sky and
covers a quarter section of land that
there is in one that is enclosed by
walls and rooted over, sheltered from
the elements that often work havoc
on the farm; but the more extern
sively similar economy is used on
the farm, the greater are the prof
it's.
In the hot, fierce competition that
came with the immense impetus to
manufactures after the war, there
came also revolution in shop meth
DDS. 1t became the standing. per-
picking problem, that kept proprie-
tors awake nights more than did
their financial problems, how to de-
crease the cost of production. The
man that did not study it out very
quickly went to the wall. Tariffs
might protect him from the outsider.
but they could not shelter him from
his neighbors' superior business
acuteness. The problem was precipi-
tated by the inventor, and it's reflex
action spurred the inventor in turn.
Rapid and accurate machines re-
| placed, wherever possible, slower and
inaccurate hand labor. The machine
did what had taken five, ten, fifty
men to do. Production was vastly
increased, with lessened cost of pro-.
duction. The movement extended to
the farm, but, generally, the idea
was different. 1t was to save labor.
to relieve the hard toll, more than
with the idea Of decreasing cost. The
latter followed as an incident, in
stead of leading as the main object.
1t makes work easier That was
blessing in and of itself, but it's
real value was that it decreased cost.
While permitting increase Of produc-
ton. Had not labor-saving machin-
cry come to the farms of the North-
west, they could not have met their
competitors Of the world in the open.
unsheltered, unprotected competition
to Which they are inexorably ex-
| posed.
| Another incident Of this enforced
need of reducing the cost of making
to which the makers in the shops were
forced, was the saving and utilization
OF that which had formerly gone to
waste. In every lfne study was given
to find out how these waste products
could be turned into profit. Farmers
buy their kerosene now for ten cents
a gallon in place of the forty and
fifty cents they paid thirty years
ago, simply because the chemist
found in the black ooze that was the
wasted residuum at first, numberless
constituents that could be separa ted
and converted into valuable prod
ucts. The by-products thus saved
are worth as much as the oil. The
Big -Four" practically monopolize
the meat markets Of this country
because they save and utilize and
make profit of what the butcher
wasted. Marquis de Mores. who
built the great abattoirs out on the
plains, lost his money and failed be-
cause he could not convert to profit
the waste of his slaughter house.
The saving of this at Chicago and
Kansas City was the margin of saw
ing that turned the scales against
him. Edward Atkinson says that
"the margin of profit in almost every
branch of productive energy now
consists In saving the waste of for
mer periods. This rule is as urgent
and severe in railway operation as
| in manufacturing" And, it may be