No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 291 



him whenever a robber cow gets into his herd, uud uo sooner dis- 

 covered he will sentence her to the mercy of the butcher. The 

 manure after it has been enriched through liis forethought in feeding 

 will not be allowed to lose the most valuable ingredient, nitrogen, 

 but he has a trap, land plaster, that will catch and retain it; neither 

 will he allow the rains to leach the potash and phosphoric acid, for 

 he has either got his yard covered or hauls the manure directly to the 

 fields. All the other live stock departments will receive the same 

 careful attention. Ii^very crop that is planted will not suffer for 

 want of fertilization, cultivation, harvesting and marketing them at 

 the proper time. 



Third, business methods. Would you think that any merchant or 

 manufacturer could succeed without knowing whether he was gain- 

 ing or losing on the sales he is making? 



The merchant finding that an article is costing him as much as his 

 competitor is selling it at, he will immediately make an attempt to 

 buy it for less money in order that it would leave him a profit, and 

 should he fail to do this he will not handle it at all. The manufac- 

 turer if he finds that another firm is underselling him, and he is un- 

 able to meet their prices and still leave him a profit, knows that the 

 cost of producing that article is too high, and he sets his brain to 

 work to find a method whereby the production can be cheapened. 



Every business man at the end of the year makes an inventory of 

 his goods to ascertain if he gained or lost, and how much. The ideal 

 farmer like his business friends knows what every pound of butter 

 or gallon of milk is costing him; what every bushel of potatoes and 

 all kinds of grain, every pound of live stock, every ton of hay, and 

 Jill other productions on his farm, he knows just what the cost thereof 

 is. And if he finds that the cost overbalances the receipts he will 

 endeavor to lessen it, and if unable to do so, he will drop it altogether, 

 and produce more of that which will pay a profit. His inventory will 

 show him too, at the end of the year, in bold figures what he made or 

 lost that year. 



How many of us must acknowledge that w^e farm year in and out 

 without ever knowing the cost of a single crop, a gallon of milk, a 

 pound of butter or live stock, and we w^onder why we don't make 

 money. 



Now let us all at the beginning of this 20th century firmly resolve 

 to get out of the old ruts and become more intelligent, pay strict at- 

 tention in detail to all branches of our vocation. Use business 

 methods, and when the great reaper, Death, has mow^n us down, that 

 those are left behind may say, ''he was an ideal farmer." 



