The leader., 1899-02-08
AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.

EDS. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN-ln stead of tell
ing us farmers how to raise more produce, wish
you would tell us how to sell at profit what
We do raise. A. NJ. X.
Let us discuss the problem. We
take it you mean that you wish ways
and means provided by which you can
sell at profit whatever you may have
to spare. That is, you want the mar
ket to fit your products rather than
your products to fit the demand of the
market. If this is a fair staten ent,
you are asking much. If manu-
facturer finds that he has been turning
out goods which the public has little
desire for, he cleans them out at what
ever he can get, and tries to become
wiser by his mistakes and meet the
demand more accurately next time.
If storekeeper in your village has
an overstock of some particular line of
goods, he does not ask you and your
neighbor to buy them at fair profit to
him, regardless of whether you need
them or not. If he did, you would
laugh at him. His only remedy is to
put his wares on the bargain counter,
and make the price such that the pub
lie will be induced to buy. If his in
vestment has been so unfortunate as to
make him loss, you do not feel so
sorry for him as to feel obliged to
buy them at price that the seller
thinks he would like to have.
If the manufacturers and merchants
suffer from misfits ON the market, why
should an exception be made in your
case? The manufacturers and the
merchants have many more points to
their problem than has the farmer.
Beside the cost of the article, there are
the whims of fashion, the change OF
seasons and many other vagaries: while
with the farmer, the main point of
consideration is cost of production.
The bulk of what he has to sell is to be
eaten, and the human appetite has
never yet gone out of fashion, and is
with us at all times of the year. If a
manufacturer or merchant can secure
goods ten per cent. below his COM
petitor, he has an advantage that will
make him master of the trade. All
farmers are competitors. Are you sure
none of your competitors are producing
farm products ten per cent. less than
you are? In fact, do you know what
your products are costing you? Do
you know the cost of a pound of'but-
ter or a pound of pork, a bushel OF po-
tatoes, or bushel of corn or wheat?
A manufacturer would know. AS COM
petition in producing farm products
continues, you also will have to know
or 90 to the wall. How can you have
the courage to ask that the world buy
your goods at paying price when
you cannot tell what that price should
be-?
Competition in farm products has
come to be nearly as strong as COM
petition in manufactured goods-a COM
petition so keen that only the strongest
succeed and all the weaker fail. In
these later years, a lead pencil has be-
come a very important farm implement.
Not only that, but farmer sho uid
know the principles of his business
Can you tell us in a general way how a
plant grows? With the present COM
petition, something more than hard
work and pinching poverty is required
for success in farming.-COunfry Gen
tlemdn.
We observe from the above article
that a farmer seeks advice from a
newspaper man.. There is a general
impression among our farmers that
editors of newspapers are incompetent
to give advice to them relative to their
business, but if the Country Gentle
man hasn't struck the keynote We will
pay for the cake. Now in lieu of but.
ter, pork, corn, wheat, ETC., in the
above let us substitute tie word cotton
and see if it will make good reading
As "a lead pencil has become a very
important farm implement" let us
use it just bit. 1t is claimed that the