The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-09-07
AGRICULTURAL.
How to Capture and Hold the Home
Market.

market. But the same rules apply in
great measure to both. AT this season
of the year the wise farmer has a good
many things to sell, and it is for his in
terest to know how to get a good price
for what he has to sell. The very first
requisite is to have the business faculty.
One man with first rate chance to
make money from selling things in the
home or other market, utterly fails.
Another man with no chance at all,
happily succeeds. Success is not in
the market, not in the amount of
money which people have to spend,
but in the man himself. That is the
secret of thousands Of successes and
failures. Failure may be due to care
lessness, inattention, lsziness, drink
ing, bad social habits, bad seasons, or q
combination of some of these, but more
often than otherwise the man himself
is at the bottom of his success or fail
ure. A man needs to be sort of
genius to sell fruits, vegetables, and the
like where there is a sharp competition.
But then the man is not the whole of
the matter.
The second requisite is that there be
good thing to sell. 1t is not to be ex-
pected that any man, no matter how
good his business capacities can sell
poor things, especially in market
where there is much competition. He
may be able to sell poor goods where
only poor goods are offered for sale, but
you see in such case at once, how
great help it must be to have better
things to sell than anybody else. In
fact, you may be pretty poor hand to
sell things, but if you can offer an ar
ticle which people can see at glance
is far superior to that which others
have to sell in the same market, you
will usually be able to sell with little
trouble. And right here is the second
great secret Of capturing and holding
the home market. If you live in a
place where there is no one who can
be really said to have captured it, if
all the farm and garden products which
are offered for sale are "just tolerable''
as they say in the south, then to get
that market you simply want to produce
something that is good deal better
than "just tolerable," and you have it.
1t drops right into your lap. The tug
of war comes when somebody else has
already captured it, and you have got
to produce something to sell which is
not only above the ordinary, but above
the extraordinary. That is what takes
genius, and skill, and all those qualities
in man or woman which make up
that which we name success. Now lei
me illustrate.
The writer lives where many peaches
are grown. Peaches come up in fence
corners and by the roadside just as ap'
pies do in Vermont. But some four
or five years ago man bought piece
of rocky, sandy hilltop, cleared it uE
and set it out to peach and other fruit
trees. All around the town were peach
come up themselves, and every season
many bushels of peaches were sold in
the town. But this man sent to nurse
ries and bought the best varieties OF
trees which could be had, set them out
carefully, and went to work. Those
trees were not left to themselves
They were we'll cared for. Last spring
for instance saw the care they got
One men spent all his time from Janu
airy nearly up to June in that orchard
Fertilizer was scattered around every
tree and well raked in, weeds and
grass were kept down. The land al
among the trees was plowed early ir
spring, plowed later, and in May COW
peas were sown all among the trees
When they came up those which came
up under the trees we're killed out will
rake 30 as not to be in the way o.
gathering the fruit. AS l have said
the place is hilltop, and here there
are heavy rains which wash the soil I'm
less great care is taken, especially OF
sandy side hills. So to prevent this
the land has to be laid off in terrace
usually with a level and other instru
ments. bitches are made about thre,
or four rods apart, and these are graded
so that there will be just slope enough
for the water to run off in the ditch il
the direction in which the owner de
sires. On the upper side of the ditcl
is piled all the stones and stumps, ant
other rubbish which can be collected
and earth piled against this. Whei
the rains come, the surface water run
down to the stones, etc, filters through
them and through the ground unde
them into the bitches, and then run
off slowly without any washing of tn
soil. This has to be done on a grea