FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V. 457 



is prompt. Furnish free entertainment to parties from a distance and 

 have free lunch for everyone. 



Fourth: Provide a comfortable place in which to hold the sale. If 

 there is no barn suitable for the purpose, do not hesitate to hire a good 

 tent. Have seats for the crowd, and be sure that seats are secure. If 

 a swine sale, do not have sale ring more than eighteen feet across, en- 

 closed with patent fencing thirty inches high, bringing seats well up 

 to the ring. For cattle and horse sales a larger ring is of course neces- 

 sary. 



Fifth: Class and arrange your stock in the pens or stalls so it will 

 appear to the best advantage, numbering each animal so as to correspond 

 with catalog number. Number swine with paint, and place numbers on 

 back just behind the shoulders. Never depend upon ear tag numbers 

 for the sale ring, and be sure there is no error in the numbering. For 

 cattle place cloth or paper numbers by pasting on each hip, and for 

 horses attach numbers to halter. It is always best to number your offer- 

 ing the evening before sale, or very early sale morning. Never delay 

 numbering until the crowd is arriving. Procure a sufficient number of 

 helpers, and give instructions so that each will know what is expected 

 of him. Arrange entrance and exit to the sale ring, so there can be no 

 delay in getting the stock in and out. Everything should be completed 

 and ready by nine o'clock sale day, with nothing for the proprietor to 

 do but receive guests, and look after their comforts. Extend to your 

 neighbors the same courtesy as to those from a distance, and make every- 

 one feel at home. 



Sixth: One hour before sale time have lunch served, and have plenty. 

 Be ready to start the sale on time. With your helpers instructed as to 

 the order in which the stock will be sold, your place during the sale is 

 near the auctioneer. Be prepared to answer all questions regarding the 

 stock, and do not withhold or cover up any of the facts. Be brief and to 

 the point, and also be pleasant. If an animal sells for less than you 

 were expecting, do not complain for the next may bring you more than 

 you expected. At this particular time in the sale, the success with which 

 you are to meet depends entirely upon the ability of the auctioneer on 

 the block. If you have employed an expert salesman, a man who is 

 familiar with every phase of the business now at hand, you have done 

 wisely. But if you have tried to save a few dollars by hiring an auctioneer, 

 whose only recommendation is a low fee, and placed within the hands of 

 an inexperienced salesman, the responsibility of getting you a reward 

 for your effort in caring for the offering, and getting ready for the sale, 

 may the good Lord pity you. Employ the local auctioneer through cour- 

 tesy and to prevent a farm sale being held in the neighborhood the same 

 day. He can also help in advertising, and work in the ring. The field 

 men representing the live stock journals in which you have advertised 

 the sale are all good ring men, and they are always ready and willing 

 to help a sale in every possible way. Where y-ou expect them to help 

 in the ring, always supply your clerk with a few sheets of carbon paper, 

 so that he can furnish each of them with a complete list of the sale when 

 it is concluded, and thus avoid the delay entailed by the ring men also 

 having to clerk the sale while it is in progress. 



