Norwich bulletin., 1909-09-04
A FARMERS TALK TO FARMERS
The Theoretical Farmer-What is Good Business Man The Market Price-Haste in Marketing is Not AL ways Best-Crops Should Not be Sold for Less than Cost-t is Not Good Business to Sell Anything Less Than Cost

i balloon. Similarly if just enough of them hold back their potatoes so that only eight carloads a day arrive, the price will just as surely go up. If there are more than enough potatoes to sup ply the demand the buyer makes the price; if you don't sell em at his terms there are others to be had. But if there are not enough potatoes to go round, the buyer, who must take yours or get none, pays your price rather than go without.
 Now, there are very few things in the way of country produce that must be sold the very day they're produced. Most of our stuff'll keep over night Much of it will keep for weeks and months. I've known farmers, when the hay crop was locally heavy, to sell hay from the field at $4 ton, and all most beg buyers to take it at that rate. Yet they weren't compelled to do so. That very season of our over sup ply there was a shortage in the Phila- delphia and Baltimore markets, and that same hay, after paying cost or bailing and tranhportation, if sold there, would have netted almost twice as much to the famer. Or he could have transformed it into butter and got still more for it. beside having the
 
 stored it, and, the very next summer, have sold it to nearby liveryTnen for SIS 8 ton In one case that know about the man who sold at $4 was sim ply short sighted; couldn't see year ahead: in another case, he was ba.by- ishly unable to walt for the new bug gy he'd set his heart on, and that $40 for ten tons of hay made up what he lacked to pay for the wagon. What moved others I don't know, but do know that it wasn't good business" for these farmers to sen hay at an ab- surdly low and unremuneratfve price, just because it happened to be the market
 don't believe there's any real neees- sity of our often selling our products you say, "and to live we must raise things and sell. them for what we can get" Very true: we must live and we can only live by raising produce. But we are not always obliged to sell that produce for less than it cost us to raise it. don't think we often are. How does it help me to live, if I sell for fifty cents a bushel the corn 1t has cost me fffty-one cents bUshel to raise" Wouldn't I be better off if I'd kept the fifty-one cents in my pocket Or, having the corn, wouldn't be bet ter off to sell it In eggs or broilers or pork or some thing which would en- able me to get at least fifty-two cents for it?
 For one, don't think it good busi- ness to sell anything for less than it has cost me to raise. Indeed I aim to raise nothing which there isn't good prospect that I can sell at a fair profit over and above its total cost. Da I always succeed? No, I don't. I get stuck now and then with a crop I can't sell for what it has cost me. Right there my stubborn and mulish disposition comes in. When that par ticular thing happens that particular crop is dropped from my list. If have a lot on hand. I ransack all the possibilities for some other and profit able use for 1t, rather than selling it direct at market price, If no such use suggests itself, then I let that crop go. Better half a loaf than no bread?" No sir-ee. I can live without bread. so long as I have beef and pork and eggs and milk and potatoes. etc. don't have to eat brea1. and I won't, if I have to pay the price Of full loaf for a half loaf. Not so long as there are other things to fill up with. If neighbor needs corn and cant pay for it, I'll give him some of mine, out right, and charge 1t up to neighborli- ness. But If he simply wants corn, and asks me to sell it to him for less than it cost me to raise it, demur, no mat ter what the market price may be. I will-not-sell things for less than they cost me to raise, except under very unusual circumstances There are cases, of sickness, of unexpected emer- gencies, of insistent interest payments, etc, when one must sacrifice to main Jain his credit or pay his bills. I'm not considering such things. I'm think ing of big classes, ike the wheat growers of the United States who. for twenty years, haven't averaged as much income from the wheat they sold as their outgo was to produce it. Pm thinking of the dairyrnen who supply New York city with milk and who for ten years, haven't averaged as much, per quart, for their milk, as it has cost them, per quart, to get it. And 50 on.
 Yet, if just quarter-nay, l believe if one-tenth of the wheat growers and the milk producers would shut right down on wheat and milk and refuse to sell one kernel or one drop without fair pay, the consequent dfninution of the supply would send the price up where it belongs. "All very fine" you say, "bE1 how are you going to get the quar- ter or the tenth to agree to do this ?' Bless you, I'm not looking at that end of it. Neither you nor I are responsi- ble for other folks. We're responsible for ourselves alone. We've got to suf- fer more or less from the foolishness of others. but that's no excuse for be- ing foolish ourselves, and thus in creasing the burden. We are not charged with the duty of steering the universe. nor are we able to do it. We can use our own brains and our skirts are clear, so long as we act judgunat- ically, no matter whether others are wise or unWise