HOW TO MAKE DEEDING PROFITABLE. 277 



one of these separate contingencies, as well as many 

 others not mentioned, exerts its own peculiar influence, 

 small in some cases but great in others, upon the cost 

 of beef, pork, and all similar products, and each one 

 of these helps to determine the question whether the 

 final result will be a profit or a loss. 



Thus it appears that the cost and the profit of 

 these products have already begun to accrue when, in 

 early spring, the farmer strikes the first furrow in his 

 cornfield, and the plough in his hand becomes a 

 mathematical instrument that helps to solve a ques- 

 tion of figures. It may, in fact, be said with truth, 

 that still earlier than the spring this question of cost 

 has begun to be solved. "When in the previous fall 

 the cultivator goes into the field to select his seed-corn 

 for the following crop, even then he settles, in that 

 brief interval of time, one of the important contingen- 

 cies on which his future profits are suspended. 



Considering, then, how many distinct operations 

 the farmer goes through, before reaching his final re- 

 sults, and how certainly these results are affected by 

 each operation and by his manner of performing it, 

 it is scarcely surprising that experience differs so 

 widely in regard to the profit of feeding. It would 

 seem that in farming, as in every other business, suc- 

 cess depends, after all, more upon the man than on 

 any other cause. Some men are constantly seeking in- 

 formation and accumulating knowledge, while others 

 prefer to cleave to their ignorance. One man con- 

 trives to do every thing nearly right, while another is 



