DAIRY MEETIN'G. :i5 



all of the produce back on the farm. This year, as I have said, 

 squashes are cheap, cabbages are worth $20, potatoes 90 to 95 

 cents, and hay probably $20. Let us see how it was last year. 

 Last year cabbages were worth eight or ten dollars a ton, and 

 I think they touched twelve or tifteen late in the spring. 

 Squashes began at S20 and S22 and finally reached $30 and $31. 

 Potatoes were a drug on the market and hay was high. Last 

 year wc had squashes and hay high, cabbages and potatoes 

 cheap. You could get out of it whole on cabbages and potatoes 

 and you could make money on what hay and squashes you had 

 to sell. The year before, the same conditions existed, — cab- 

 bages and potatoes were cheap and squashes and hay were high. 

 The year preceding squashes were absolutely given away over 

 to the Cape, cabbages were worth $45 a ton, potatoes a dollar a 

 bushel and hay S18 a ton. I will not dwell on this any longer. 

 Of course every man ought to diversify his crop. If he does 

 not want to raise those particular crops that appeal to me, he 

 can figure it out and find four crops that he can raise. 



Further than the knowledge of raising these crops which you 

 must have, and which you can get from whatever source you 

 please, is the equipment. Of course the equipment for raising 

 potatoes is the most expensive. You not only require good 

 tools, planters, cultivators, sprayers, etc., which do not apply to 

 any other crop, but you have also got to have storage facilities. 

 You cannot afford to sell potatoes out of the field. I want to 

 make that statement just as broad as that, because it is said 

 continually that potatoes should be sold from the field. You 

 can never tell what the condition is, and you are up against the 

 market. If the market finds it can buy from the field, it will 

 take them at a cheap price. In a year of plenty it is perhaps 

 well enough to sell from the field, if you have the information 

 that you are going to get a cheap price later. That is for each 

 man to determine. Potatoes are the expensive crop in equip- 

 ment, and if you have the equipment you really ought to raise 

 more than four or five acres. A sprayer is expensive. Of 

 course you can get along without a planter, but it is a difficult 

 proposition to raise potatoes commercially without a planter and 

 without a digger. And then you have to have storage facilities. 

 If you put potatoes in your house cellar and have to carry them 

 out again, it is a very tiresome job. But when you raise cab- 

 bages or squashes, or some other crops, you do not have to have 



