The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1914-04-10
BUSINESS SENSE i'm FARMING.
COncentratiOn-Use of Good Name
Concealed Fertility.

The farmer is wholesale producer
like the manufacturer. To succeed
in business, he must be guided by his
principles. a manufacturer does not
try to run plant that is too large
for his capital or his energies. III
he has one that he finds too big for
these, he rents out part Of his
building and his power He saves
his strength and gains time for better
supervision. He concentrates and
most farmers should do the
same. But, few of them feel they
can cut down their acreage; the
crops, the animal and milk yields are
none too big as it is. That is true,
but one and one-half times the labor
now put on twenty-five acres and
half the money value of such labor
put into one chemical that improves
soil permanently-lime, will make them
produce az much as seventy acres al
ordinarily cultivated. In other words,
two-thirds the cost OF working the
present average farm will get the
produce out of one that is one-third
the size. Less pay for help, reduced
taxes and more energy to tend stock,
repair fences, tools and buildings,
will make the concentration pay.
A well worked farm, no matter how
small, increases a mans reputation
and reputation means credit Like
everything else. credit improves with
use. ii is hard for any man to get
his first loan 1t is easier after he
has paid his first one promptly. No
manufacturer and no farmer can get
along who does not make and use
credit. 1T is the bankers business to
find money and loan it to him to
work with. But, in making loans, he
sizes up the man as well as the Sc
curity. He prefers tidy, productive
property and a man with the sense
not to wear himself out.
Even poor land has much fertility
locked up in it. BY working only a
sufficient part, which responds best
to work, and aiding the work chemi-
cally with the fertility developer,
lime, you concentrate your plant"
Let the rest of the land 90, rent 1t or
sell it off. If manure is insufficient,
you must make nitrogen and humus
i'm the soil with the use Of legumes or
clover. But, the man who sows
clover seed at $500 to $1,000 bushel,
without lining, throws away his
money. Every farmer knows this, or
should know it by now, but too few
do it. 1t Is useful to help out with
phosphates and potash when tillage
and reasonable lining do not develop
enough in the soil for a good crop.
But. by having all the crops needs of
these is extravagant waste. The man
who makes the excuse that the season
il wet and late, labor scarce, and that
there is no time to spread lime now,
but will leave it for next year, and
for this attempts to improve fertility
with a useless fertilizer, gives Way to
the worst habit. There will be just
as many reasons next year for avoid
ing the troublesome" but necessary
job OF lining. The man who feels
that he cannot afford to buy lime or
90 into debt for it, withholds the soil
improver that lasts, that maintains
fertility. A lime debt Is good debt.
Every well informed rural banker
knows that a farm worked regularly
to maintain its fertility, and not to
get an exceptional bumper crop
sacrificing future productiveness, is
the safest collateral. Money borrow
ed for labor and lime is a good soil
investment for their efforts extend
beyond the season.-By Karl Langen-
beck.