LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 391 



than proportionately increased. What would our fatliers have thought of the 

 prices obtained for some of these animals for breeding purposes? "We see the 

 same increase in the margin of profit, resulting from more intelligent hus- 

 bandry, in the production of beef and dairy products. When I was a boy I 

 used to hear it frequently said that there was just a penny a day, between the 

 man who kept his coat on and the man who took his coat off, and it was in 

 favor of the man who kept his coat on. But, many of these people had the 

 idea, as some have still, that the man who took off his coat worked, and the 

 man who kept it on did not. This is wrong; men work as hard with their 

 coats on as men do who take them off, only it is a different kind of work, and 

 it is the work that brings the largest return every time. I thhik it is safe to 

 say that there is more than a dollar a day, take the world over, between the 

 man wlio works with his coat on and the man who works with it off, in favor 

 of the former. Eem ember, I am not speaking of the idler, but the worJcer 

 who keeps it on. 



The margin of profit in farming will also be in proportion to the amount 

 of capital judiciously employed. I have known some farmers who, in other 

 respects, had excellent practical ideas, but whose practice in regard to the use 

 of capital did much to prevent a larger success. As soon as they made a little 

 beyond their immediate wants, they would put it out at interest. Well, per- 

 haps you will say a little money out at interest surely isn't a very damaging 

 thing. Of course, in itself considered, it is a very good thing, but it might be 

 worth while for some people to ask whether there is not something better. 

 Whether there is not a bank on their own farm in which that money could be 

 made to yield a larger dividend ; or better still, whether some of it might not 

 be better employed in improving the minds and manners of the members of 

 the home circle, fitting them to mingle in society with the intelligent and 

 refined. We see comparatively few farms on which a more liberal outlay of 

 capital, if made judiciously, could fail greatly to increase both the pleasure 

 and the profit of the labor expended upon them. 



Capital is as truly the sinew of farming as of war. The successful mer- 

 chant or manufacturer rarely diverts his profits from his business. He is not 

 ambitious to become a money lender as soon as his transactions leave a surplus 

 of profit. He generally adds it to his original investment. Increases his 

 business or improves his methods, carries a larger stock, employs more hands, 

 or purchases improved machinery, and as he can afford it, adding to the com- 

 fort and elegance of his home, adapting it more perfectly to the best and 

 noblest development and culture of his family. Why should not the farmer 

 do likewise? He should expend each year a liberal portion of the profits 

 derived from the products of the farm in such permanent improvements as 

 the erection of necessary buildings, the repair of those already on the farm, 

 the improvement of stock, the reclamation of some piece of waste land, the 

 drainage of some wet field, or the fertilization of an impoverished one, or 

 something that will add to the beauty and comfort of home. In short, what- 

 ever will add to the pleasure of the home life, or to the taste, convenience, and 

 profit of the farm. The return from such investments will yield something 

 better even than ten per cent. Such a bank will always be able to declare a 

 dividend, and not be subject to stoppage or revulsion. In all business enter- 

 prises capital is power, and I should like to see it enforced on the mind of 

 every farmer that its employment is as necessary to the successful pursuit of 

 agriculture as in mercantile and mechanical pursuits, and will be likely to 

 prove as profitable financially. Under the present conditions of farming. 



