The Benson signal., 1919-05-17

OUT. often what he has been DO
ing, in fact, is to wear himself and
his family out doing. things the
hard or costly way when his neigh
bors with better, capital sense"
have been adopting cheaper and
easier methods The same may be
said about animal machinee. l
used to live in a region where most
Of the farmers thought they could
not afford to sell their little old
scrub bulls to the butcher and turn
around and pay five or ten times
their price for a good purebred.
They figured dollar costs instead of
what the economist calls oppor-
tunity costs" AS the old auction
eer used to say, You'll die poor
as long as you live, if you let such
chances get by you.
This is why we hear so much
about farm finance OF rural credits
today. The live, wide-awake far
n1er knows he must have the best
equipment which science has de-
vised for the handling of his par
ticular line of work, whether it be
/ silos or tractors or two-row culti-
vators or milking machines or a
good sire or pedigreed seed. He
knows too that if he waits uutil he
can save the purchase price of this
new aid to profitable farming he
must continue on the smaller re-
turn basis until he gets it. On the
other hand, if he is to get the thing
which is to save labor or improve
his product now, his earnings at
once advance to the higher level
and it is easy to pay for his pur-
chase. In fact, it pays for itself.
| have heard more than one farmer
say. | won't buy nothing | can t
pay for. - That is good sense too,
if it is matter of buying some
thing on credit which one is going
to eat up or wear out without its
earning its own purchase price.
But it is only good business prac-
tice to buy in excess of what I can
pay for today, if this increases my
earning power SO that / can pay
for it in the next six months or
year or whatever time is suitable
to the character of the investment.
The whole rural credits problem
therefore comes down to just two
propositions. First, make sure the
farmers investments are for things
which really will pay out, and sec
ond, provide credit agencies that
will enable them to get this pur-
chasing power on as easy terms as
any other business Taking up the
first proposition, it is of course evil
dent that we cannot avoid every
single mistake in this direction. In
the past many farmers have been
victimized by slick statesmen of in
ferior nursery stock. worthless
seeds, phoney lightning rod sys-
tens and the like. But the intel
ligent farmer can today avoid all
such pitfalls by taking advantages
of the educational opportunities af-
forded by the farm papers, the
agricultural.s schools, and the county
demonstration agent. The solution
of this difficulty is not in stopping
our buying. but in learning to buy
wisely. We must remember that
no system of credits in agriculture
can be expanded faster than the
rate at which its patrons learn to-
use it in such a way as to keep the
credit always safe because constant
1v paying itself out. The city busi-
ness man has worked out a system
in this regard so safe that he reg
llarly capitalizes his operations on
! credit to large percentage of his
whole volume of business. This
because he makes close and con
slant study of business principles
and is part of carefully construct
ed business organization, which has
I developed it's own financial insti