1902.] BUSINESS METHODS IN" BUYING FERTILIZERS. I5I 



sand. A sharp call from a bank for money loaned might 

 show him his danger and stop him, but with only an indefi- 

 nite promise to pay he may go on trusting to luck instead of 

 sound business methods. 



I am coming to think that, as a rule, commercial fertiUzers 

 do not and cannot pay unless they are bought for cash and at 

 the lowest possible rates. The extra time price goes far 

 towards eating up any surplus crop which the fertilizers 

 themselves produce. 



I have not been describing the general state of the fer- 

 tilizer trade in Connecticut. There are many farmers, and an 

 increasing number, who buy their fertiUzers on the very best 

 terms. They buy for cash and in the cheapest market and 

 under guarantee, for they are business farmers. This talk is 

 not for them. And there is a larger number whose methods 

 are not as slack as those which I have described. But there 

 are too many who have not an idea of business sense in the 

 matter. 



I have spoken so far of the dangers of buying fertilizers 

 in the way that some of us buy them. Of course, what has 

 been said applies equally to feed or other supplies. Now, 

 look at the chief positive advantages of buying for cash. 

 They are two. First, a very large number of competing firms 

 are willing and anxious to do business with the man who buys 

 for cash. They do not wait for him to come. They hunt 

 him. Cash is what they are after. They solicit; they call 

 his attention to anything they have which is or looks like a 

 bargain ; they will give him the very best terms they can in 

 order to get and keep his trade. He does not need to be per- 

 sonally known to them. They have little concern about his 

 credit, for he pays cash. He can deal not only with local fer- 

 tilizer agents who know him and his family and his church 

 connections to the third and fourth generation, but with man- 

 ufacturers and with New York fertilizer brokers as well. He 

 can take advantage of any temporary break in the market and 

 he can get the best terms from competing concerns. 



The second advantage of buying for cash is this : Farmers 

 who do it can bunch their orders and buy what each needs, 

 whether a half ton or a ton or five tons, in car iGts. thus 

 getting their freight at car rates, and also wholesale rather 

 than retail rates for their fertilizers, both of which things re- 

 duce the cost of fertilizers remarkably. 



