The Republican journal., 1909-05-20
Methods On The Farm.

rIOm the Pacific coast q dl6lllu6lOned
rancnman addresses to one OF our agri-
cultural authorities an imprisoned but
palmetto appeal. "Mr. Editor" he
writes, Il wish you would tell the good
people of the East not to be in such a
hurry to come West. Every little town
IN the State of Oregon is raising money
10 get this country advertised, people are
constantly coming in, and not one town
IN oUO has any place to house the people
VINO come. Just west of us, about
eighty miles, carload of cattle froze to
death, and two immigrants also froze in
tne car-so you see it is not all sun
SHINE out here. You can tell your
friends for me that the biggest liars in
the world are the men who are sending
these advertisements East. All they
want Is your money. Nine out of every
Ten places advertised is On hoodoo.
l know, for l am right here on the
ground. All of which may prompt the
reader to reflect that if the Eastern
farmer exercised little forethought he
would not beNin such hurry to go West,
and that If he was more OF a business
man he would not need to think of max
ing any change.
AS the case stands, in the East city
folks rush in where farmers fear to tread,
and frequently show them how to sue
coed. One of the most prosperous fruit
growers in Western New York went to
the city at the age Of twenty, worked
fifteen years in bank, and returned to
the country to buy land, and to make
money from it. His neighbors' crops
might sometimes be larger; but his crop
generally yielded the better returns.
Last season, when other growers were
selling their Bartlett pears to canning
establishment at the rate of four cents a
pound fright through the CROP" this
gentleman suggested that if he could
have five cents pound for the better
grades he would take half price for the
culls. The Gamers jumped at the offer.
The neighbors laughed. Yet as matter
of fact the usual proportion of culls is
less than one-fifth Of the crop, so that as
the transaction figured out the man with
the special contract received % 1-2 cents
for each five pounds of pears, as against
the 20 cents his neighbors got, a differ
ence Of more than 10 per cent.
Not only in selling, but in choosing the
crop, do business methods promote sue
cess. One must begin by getting ac-
quainted with his land, must know it as
intimately as an up-to-date manufactu-
rer knows his market; and then he must
act upon the knowledge and call upon the
soil for that which it can best supply.
In many places in the Central West, a
traveller may find men growing spring
wheat and, in a good season, getting fiji
teen bushels to the acre, when neigh
Dor who grows winter wheat is getting
thirty bushels. The spring wheat men
''have always grown it, and they can
not get it through their heads that the
land is better adapted to the other yari-
ETY.. Similarly in some New England
communities one can see corn planted on
elevations where it fairly freezes every
night, and where there is not water
enough to grow more than a stalk to the
hill. Many an abandoned farm in this
region was abandoned because the owner
never found out what it was fit for-like
historic tract in southern Texas, which
passed through the hands of nine per-
sons, all of whom tried to utilize it for
the various crops they had produced
''back East" One by one they were
starved out. Finally the l20 acres fell
into the hands of a man who saw its pos
sibilities, and who, last year, raised an
$4,000 crop of rice, ninety bushels to the
acre.
Business methods, in short, require the
adaptation of the crop to the soil. Again,
they demand a certain stability of pro-
duction. Any observer Of rural conditions
knows men who are always pursuing high
prices and never catching up. When po-
tatoes are scarce they resolve to plant
potatoes-next year-only to learn at
harvest time that 10000 other men con-
ceived the same brilliant idea and that
potatoes, therefore, are plentiful and
cheap. Continually they engage in this
futile scramble, never appearing to real
ize that if any crop is "high," one year,
it is pretty sure to be low the following
year, since the increased price will stimu-
late increased production. The business
like plan for such men would be to learn
the best use for their land and then try,
year after year, to perfect that product,
whether potatoes or strawberries, oats
or asparagus. In bad seasons and good
seasons alike, the market is always look
ing for superior quality, and, generally
speaking, a choice product commands a
premium which will make its production
profitable.
Cooperation, the word and the prac-
tice, has been used to cover multitude
of sins against sense, yet that does not
alter the 1dcC CndC IdTuloTS VIII were
good business men could find more than
one way to cooperate. If, for instance,
the men of certain district would "get
together and agree on the breeds of
stock that they should raise they would
practically insure themselves a home
market, whether they wished to buy or
sell; and it would not be long before men
who wanted carload lots of Percherons
or Holsteins or Berkshires or Southdowns
would be seeking that neighborhood and,
in consideration of finding full supply,
paying the breeders extra sums that
would otherwise have to be spent for
travelling expenses. Admitted that move
ments along this line are more easy to
suggest than to carry out. That, not
withstanding, to put one on its feet
would probably cost less than it would
cost to remove to the Gland Of sunshine, -
and the businesslike projectors would run
less risk of freezing or Of being nipped
by adversely. L. S. in the Boston
Transcript.
Many weak, nervous women have been re-
stored to health by Foley's Kidney Remedy as
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