The Monitor-register., 1896-01-17
NEGLECT OF LITTLE THINGS.
lKead before Jacksonville Grange
No. 20, P. of HI

go -
life perhaps, but every day the battle of
overcoming the little things confronts us,
and every day the manner in which we
lay a stone in our character building, or
business habits. decides whether our life's
foundation shall stand or fall.
We are all of us familiar with the story
OF the horseshoe nail, no doubt u
childish ears heard the jingle years ago,
but did we realize its weight, its truth?
Yet it is the horseshoe nail, or its equiva.
lent, which often decides our success or
non-success in business all throughout
lives.
Dg6king over the world of business
and women, we find the most sue
cessful are those who pay strict attention
to every detail of business, neglecting no
trifies which can add a penny's weight in
their favor.
The farmer needs to take lessons from
the business man, in attention to detail.
He needs to learn that the village store,
unless made over, is not o mutual i'm
provement club-house-rather the reverse.
He takes q rainy day to chat and smoke
about the stove with his neighbors. A
screw is loose in his barn door, a halter,
partly worn, fastens his favorite mare;
she gets loose, eats too much corn and
the good farmer sits up all night perhaps,
in atonement, while the next days work
drags because of the extra strain. A
loose board allows his pigs to get into his
corn or his neighbours, and a general fuss
follows.
His plows and wagons 60 implanted,
often are left about the fields. There
was no time to attend to them; but there
was time to talk scandal, was it, or bust
ness ? at the store.
The stables are unoleaned; that rainy
day was a good time to do it. Shutters
are loose, window lights out, a cold fol-
lows and a doctor bill, while business
suffers and things generally go awry,
just for want of attention to detail.
Three days of time wasted one March,
not quite enough manure bought, and
the early potato crop "does not catch the
~worm"-the highest price.
Wheat sowed a few days too late and a
shortage of a good many bushels is the
result. Corn half farmed, and the poor
man grumbles about "bad luck"
A leak in the pump-box and bis new
flooring gives way. A filled up drain,
and his best man. or it may be himself.
lies i'll with typhoid fever in the height
of the season. One poor cow, which he
neglects to get rid of, and his monthly
profit turns into loss. A few days too
late with his clover seed, and only half a
grass crop, consequently not SO many
COWS can be kept and his milk returns
drop one-half. Beds poorly made for the
horses, and feed them as he will, they
never will look as we'll kept as they
should.
A neglected piece of ground lies back
of his barn, such a Ii tile piece it seems,
not worth farming, yet the weeds there.
from will cause him trouble for years,
and further, a Japanese farmer would
provide for a family upon it.
A poor garden, in consequence, a heav.
Ter meat bill, and the butcher makes
while the worthy farmer loses.
The one thing on the farm which is
always in demand and commands cash
he leaves to the already ov~erburdened
"women folks" as their work, and loses
hundreds of dollars by SO doing.
If the farmers of New Jersey would
pay more attent ion to the poultry bust.
ness and less to potatoes, wheat, horses
and things that the West can beat us in,
l know that it would add thousands Of
dollars to our agricultural wealth.
Now, don't 60 home and tell your wives
to ''raise more chickens" unless you also
add "while l do the Homework" fol
homework and the rearing of children il
business and enough for any one woman
Will you pardon me for a speech / made
years ago which l will repeat tonight
1t was this: "The American farmer has
more cheek than all the rest of his sex.
He woos a woman, WHISTLER, pledges all
his worldly goods to her at the marriage
altar, then turns around and asks her tc
do his Homework, raise his children and
make her own pin money between times
on poultry raising.
Poultry raising is a business of itself,
and belongs to outside not inside work
and when the farmer learns this he viii
fatten his pocketbook, keep his wife
longer, and give employment to old men
and boys who can do such work and
need It.
AS a farming class we need more ofigi
nality. Don't, l beg of you, o p your
neighbor. Strike out son. new lines. II
one thing does not succeed, try another;
but do not raise sweet potatoes or water.
melons because Sam Jones does and
makes it pay" You arenot Sam Jones
but yourself; find out your crop and pus7
it 'for all It's WORTH"
There seems to be a general feeling
against ''book farming" The most snc
cessful English agriculturists take q
course in a good agricultifaf college,
where both the science of agriculture ant
its practical application are taught, befor'
beginning their business, and marke
gardening is there often made very prof
table.
We are coming to the time when W,
cannot afford to neglect any little thing
when every tree we plant must be TO
profit, when our land must be all utilities
and everything turned to account.
. Along the road leading past my owl
home tall naples and pines tell the stor,
of a loving fathers appreciation of HON,
and a desire to beautify it, yet 1 thinl
If he were living to day he woult
say, "Osnamefit tyour }r6adsides, by al
means, as they do in France, for profit
while, at the same time, giving tn
weary passerby shade and the land tree
to help draw down the moisture. LIE
those trees be the Spanish chestnut ant
our own-the walnut and English walnu
apple, pear, ounce, cherry and plum
trees of our climate"
Instead of hedges I would advise suci
planting. The trees can act as posts fol
the wire fences of to-day. The country
will be beautiied and you will add two
or three hundred dollars TO the income o
your farms some years hence.