CHANGES IN FARMING. 345 



lie must not attempt to carry on too many different branches of 

 business so as to divide and fritter away his energies. 



lie should know the cost of his wares and where and how to 

 obtain or produce them cheapest. 



He should have a reasonable certainty that he is pursuing the 

 most judicious methods and avoid all needless losses. 



If a manufacturer, he should know the comparative cost of all 

 the different products which he manufactures. 



The business of the farmer resembles that of a manufacturer more 

 than that of a trader or a merchant. Have we thought sufficiently 

 of the close analogy which exists betweeu farming and manufac- 

 turing? and of the useful practical lessons which may be drawn 

 from it? Let me mention two or three points of resemblance. In 

 the first place both use raw materials, to which labor and skill are 

 to be added. One uses — perhaps cotton, or wool, or leather, or 

 iron — each naturally adapted to certain well known uses and re- 

 quiring definite and peculiar machinery and processes of manufac- 

 ture. No man attempts to manufacture cotton goods and woollen 

 goods and leather goods and iron wares. The farmer's raw mate- 

 rials are soils and seeds, and of these be has a wide variety. His 

 soils differ in natural qualities, in adaptation to different crops and 

 in natural fertility. His business is necessarily more complicated 

 and intricate, and demands greater skill for its best execution than 

 that of any other manufacturer on the face of the earth. Hence 

 the greater necessity for the introduction of correct business prin- 

 ciples as well as of knowledge into its conduct. 



Both employ machinery in the manufacture of their products. 

 The men who work in cotton and iron study earnestly and per- 

 severingly, and go to great expense to procure such as will 

 accomplish the desired end in the best manner and with the least ■ 

 expenditure of power. They know full well, and they realize the 

 fact, that any heedlessness in so vital a matter would bring failure. 

 But if my observations are correct, the farmers of Maine, as a 

 whole, are decidedly behind other manufacturers in the State in 

 selecting skillfully, and with an eye to profit, such machinery as 

 will serve some of their purposes best and do some of their man- 

 ufacturing most cheaply. 



In saying this, after what has already been said, it is perhaps 

 unnecessary to add that I do not now refer to farm implements. 

 The degree of interest felt by Maine farmers generally in obtaining 

 the best implements, if not all that it might be and should be, is 



