FARMERS' CLUBS. 45 



things, demand a certain amount of cash every year. In order to 

 meet these demands, the farmer must buy and sell, and thus be- 

 comes a vierchant as well as farmer. 



If he understands nothing of the laws of trade, he is liable to 

 be continually deceived. What will it avail him to know how to 

 raise cattle or sheep of great excellence, or horses, which, in the 

 hands of a skillful dealer, would sell for three or four hundred dol- 

 lars each, if all were to go for 20 or 30 per cent, below a fair 

 market price ? 



The successful rearing of stock requires a large experience in 

 the nature of the soils upon which they are to be fed, in the qual- 

 ity of grasses, climatic influences, and the habits of animals. The 

 senses of sight and touch may be educated to a high degree in a 

 certain direction, so that some persons will quite accurately tell 

 the weight of an ox, alive or slaughtered, by carefully observing 

 and handling him. All this knowledge, however, is of little ser- 

 vice if he cannot get the true value of the animal when sold. 



When the subject of marketing animals is discussed in the Far- 

 mers' Club, the technical terms and queer deceptions practised by 

 dishonest men are related, so that the inexperienced market man 

 is forewarned and on his guard. Some gathered knowledge from 

 others, therefore, and some experience in the peculiarities of buy- 

 ing and selling, are indispensable to success, as in the nature of 

 the case the producer must sell, and in some degree become a mer- 

 chant as well as farmer. 



A case which occurred quite near me singularly illustrates the 

 point which I wish to enforce. 



Two neighbors, living on opposite sides of the road, each had ^ 

 one hundred and fifty barrels of apples in the same month of Octo- 

 ber. They were all of the Baldwin variety, grew on the same 

 kind of soil, and were of the same quality. B. and H. took them 

 to the same mai-ket during the same iionth. H. received $375 for 

 his, and B. received for his $525, or one dollar per barrel more 

 than H. received ! Upon inquiring of B. how this occurred, he 

 replied, "simply by knowing hoio !" It was done in this way. 

 We take ten barrels at once as a load for one horse. I selected 

 flour barrels of the same height. Some of them had flat and 

 others round hoops. I made them uniform — all flat. The barrels 

 were then washed inside and out, and dried in the sun. The 

 apples were graded into classes one and two, as they were placed 

 in the barrels under the trees, and were not headed up. Then 



