Year: 1879

The question of success or failure with
most farmers, depends upon their knowl- |
edge of the markets. Many industrious |
and skillful farmers fail just at this point. |
They know how to cultivate crops, but are |
poor statesmen. They keep in the beaten |
track, and never vary the relative proper |
ton of meadow, pasture and tillage, seldom |
try new crop, or seek to improve their |
breed of cattle, swine, or poultry. They do |
not read much, and seem not to be aware
that farming, like other pursuits, is in a
transition state, and that they must meet
new demands or fail in business. The
change is so great from the age of home
spun, which closed some Fifty years ago, to
the present time, that our younger readers
can hardly appreciate it. Then, almost
every thing consumed in farmers family
in the Northern States, was produced on
his own farm, or manufactured under his
own roof. Nearly all table supplies, ex-
cept sugar, molasses, tea, and coffee, were
of his own raising. The housewife spun
and wove not only all her table and bed
linen, but all the clothing for her house
hold. She made the cotton and tow wicks
and dipped them in tallow, for the lights
in the dwelling. Travelling shoemakers
made the annual supply of boots and shoes.
The trade which a farmer had with the out.
side world was of very limited character.
All this is changed now. No cloth is made
in the home. The spinning-wheel and
loom have long since gone into kind1ing
wood, and only the small linen wheel and
distaif is preserved occasionally as a me-
mento to the thrifty habits of our grand
mothers. The farmer has become a pur-
chaser-buys all that he wears, buys much
that he eats, buys oftentimes his fuel and
lights. To meet these new demands, he has
occasion to study the markets, to find out
what people want in exchange for the
things he must purchase. Especially does
the eastern farmer need to study the home
markets. Tillers of the low priced lands of
the new States, by aid of cheap transporta-
ton, are able to compete with him in
wheat, corn, and other grain, so that ne
can not afford to raise them to sell, by the
old method at least, though possibly he
can for his own use. Hay, potatoes, and
some other articles are so bulky, that he
has little competition and can sell them at
q profit. In perishable articles. poultry,
eggs, butter, milk, vegetables, fruit, he can
compete with the prairies. With knowl-
edge of the markets, and the capacities of
the soil, it is not very difficult matter to
ascertain what crops will pay, and what will
not. Those who do not study these condi-
tions of success, and can not tell what any
given crop costs, do not know whether it
pays or not. We want this knowledge and
must have it, if we are to succeed in bust
ness. We must give up some of the old
crops as unsuited to pesent circumstances,
and cultivate those for which we know
there is a profitable demand. Or an enter.
prising man can often create demand for
a first rate article (See description of clout


ed cream" in article on Deerfoot Farm,
in the January number, as an example)


and thus have a speciality that will return
him handsome profit, and win him the
reputation of being an enterprisng man


He will at the same time set an example tC
other farmers, that may benefit the agri


culture of whole neighborhood or even o.


county-American Agriculturist.