1883 ] farmers' convention. 15 



their owners' money enables them to keep should be used to bene- 

 fit the whole region. 



Why is it the fact that, while some farmers make money by 

 farming, others make only a bare living?- The farmer does not 

 have the competition to meet that the merchant or manufacturer 

 does, for a market at good prices can be readily found for every- 

 thing our Connecticut farmers have to sell. Take the dairy 

 farmer, and if he produces a prime or extra quahty of butter or 

 cheese he can find ready sale at good, remunerative prices for 

 every pound sent to market. I know that many farmers com- 

 plain that they cannot get the cost for such butter as they take 

 to market, and the merchant or family after buying their butter 

 once does not wish to try it again, — but I do not believe that any 

 farmer has taken a pound of strictly first-class butter to any market 

 in this State this year, without finding a ready sale at a satisfactory 

 price. The demand for such butter is large and the supply small. 

 If every pound of butter made and sold in the State was extra 

 nice in quality it would find a quick market. 



• Does any one believe that it costs any more to make a pound 

 of nice butter, that is always wanted, than to make the kind no 

 one wishes to buy? Some one may say, "all farmers have not 

 the skill and appliances needed to make first-class butter." If 

 they have not, they should not try to make butter at all, but see if 

 there is not some other farm product they can raise that will pay 

 as well. What is true of the dairy is equally true of all other farm 

 products. 



Has any one ever known a farmer who has the reputation of 

 always selling the best quality of beef, pork, poultry, butter, 

 cheese, hay, or grain, not being a successful and independent 

 man? No, gentlemen, this is one of the greatest hindrances to suc- 

 cessful farming that our farmers have, — that they do not try to 

 make every product of the farm just as good as possible; and the 

 difference between what good articles and poor sell for will be 

 the difference in the profits of the two classes of farmers. 



A source of very great loss to our farmers is, that they do not 

 knoio what it costs them to make a pound of butter, beef, or 

 pork, or to raise any product of the farm. A pleasant and profit- 

 able change from the routine of labor would be the keeping of 

 accounts, so that they could tell what crops were profitable to raise, 

 and what animals profitable to keep. I do not beHeve this Board 



