664 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



to measure the weight of a beast with sufficient accuracy to make the 

 plan commercially prudent. While the eye of the master fattens his 

 cattle, it is not to be relied on in fixing their weights for sale. 



In an age that teems with perfected inventions designed to place farm- 

 ing on a business footing, any sort of guesswork in this field is inexcusable. 

 Everything that the farmer sells by weight should be weighed on his 

 own scales. Upon the facts furnished by them he can make accurate 

 deals. If he has first-class farm scales he can swear by them, and their 

 determinations will be respected by purchasers of his goods. Such scales 

 are now within the reach of almost all farmers. Not to own one is an 

 extravagance. Experience yields the emphatic verdict that business-like 

 farming can not be conducted without them. 



Economists who with breadth and balance interpret modern industrial 

 developments and deduce principles with which to guide practice, agree 

 that the largest net profits come from full equipments operated by skilled 

 labor under wise direction. Farming is an exceedingly complex art. It 

 therefore requires complexity of mechanical organization and equipment 

 •involving the use of those machines and devices which not only reduce 

 labor but enhance its efficiency. 



Like many other accessories useful to the farmer, scales may be 

 classed as indispensable luxuries. They accompany and promote careful 

 business methods in every department of agricultural activity. They are 

 eflBcient means to exact ends. So important and definite are the results 

 from their use that farmers rightly consider them investments. The 

 classification is sound. An investment implies subsequent returns repre- 

 senting a fair rate of interest on the capital involved. Scales put to the 

 dozens of uses within their sphere on any stock farm will in a short 

 time wipe out their first cost and for years afterward pay a handsome 

 usury on the original outlay. Any standard agricultural tool or machine 

 after it pays for itself becomes an actual creator of net wealth. Scales 

 will offset their cost about as quickly as any device used on the farm. 



By increasing the equipment of the farm we increase its productive 

 capacity and enlarge the possibilities of clear profit. Crudity in agri- 

 culture practices war against maximum returns. We can get along 

 without certain machines and appliances, but we can augment profits by 

 using them. Inadequate equipment may confer fair rewards, but a com- 

 plete outfit will place the largest end in reach. From the most enlight- 

 ened point of view, investments in those tools and devices which consti- 

 tute a complete mechanical outfit for a farm are fundamentally sound. 

 No outfit can be complete if it lack a standard farm scale. In the course 

 of a year there are hundreds of questions that can be submitted to the 

 scales. Are the cattle making profitable gains? Are the hogs fattening 

 satisfactorily? Is the corn weighing out? What is the yield of the 

 meadow? Is that draft well grown for his age? 



Scales will yield money-making information almost every day on the 

 stock farm. This explains the remarkable activity which prevails in the 

 scale manufacturing plants of the country. 



