Year: 1878

NN livered the following lecture before the Michigan State Agricultural So- ciety, last month:

 The question. Does farming pay? | is yagiously answered ty farmers themselves. There is no doubt Of a sure return for labor on the farm, but whether the return is as great as in other employments can be settled only by a strict inquiry into all the elements of cost. Cost is made up of exertion. All that nature does for us without our exertiOn is with out cost or value, however useful it may be. Thus exertion is both present and past-the present made up of physical, mental, and moral en- ergy, and the past including al. the savings of present labor, capital, skill, and discipline. These have varying proportion in all accomplish ments and as civilization advances, the mental and moral clements of cost, as well as ali past effort, must increase, This tendency leads some times to division of laborers into classes, from the operatives, busied with details alone to the executives, busted with oversight, and the spec ulative class, busted always with plans for supplying the future wants of man. One of these can seldom estimate fairly the share of another in production, or, his efforts; and in farming, where all are found togeth- CT, there may be a wonderful differ ence in the amount of each kind of labor applied, and so a vast differ ence in cost. The one who thinks most with his toll does the most, and gets the most pay. Too often, with all the investments of a first-class farm, the best directed energy is wanting, and frequently the best exertions are trammeled for want of proper investment along with them.

 But actual cost gives no basis for price; products sell for what they are worth; and worth is expressed by an estimate of average cost with. in a given area, and a given time of supply. It is, according to H. C. Clary, "the cost of reproduction" - From this we get the natural price above which the market price varies according to ''the higgling of the market" under the ability to sell tC ability to buy, or supply and de

 mand. The better the information possessed by both buyer and seller

 the easier and frirer the bargain London gives the market price ot grain to the world, because there ii

 gathered the fullest information. Some may feel it hardship tha the same system of farming doe

 not pay from year to year; but it i

 the heritage of civilized men every where. The grand movement O cost in all producers ofmanual labo

 is downward, because all discover,

 is designed to save labor. So tn

 farmer who takes the old metho

 brings his costly products to chea

 market. Progress always come

 with pain to the society of whic

 it is born, but the more natural tn birth the less the suffering. Th constant and general acceptance (

 new truth is the process that harm

 fewest; but every farmer who studio r. his business for labor saving make > harder the work of one who doC $ not.

 S Statistics, showing that Michiga

 stands at the head of the Wester

 States in production per acre, prov : that we are a progressive commur T ty, in which it will not do to lag b

 hind. If any farmer will hold Il 1t own, he must apply to the principl, d of his business, raising such produc

 HaM II