PREFACE 



THE last two decades have witnessed greater 

 changes and more material improvements than any 

 previous century. When these improvements will 

 have so far progressed as to render further change 

 unnecessary no man can predict. Manufacturers to- 

 day are compelled to recognize these changes in their 

 business and adjust the cost of production so as to 

 meet the changed conditions, or they must go out of 

 business. The farmer is now buying for forty-five 

 dollars a better mowing machine than could be put on 

 the market thirty-five years ago for one hundred dol- 

 lars. These remarkable changes are common to 

 nearly all industries. 



The time is comparatively recent when farming 

 was regarded as a business requiring little or no 

 previous preparation to be successfully conducted, 

 and was followed by a class of men who considered 

 themselves qualified for nothing else and who selected 

 it as a business more from necessity than from choice. 

 In fact, in many localities this idea still prevails. 

 The young man who thought he had a gift for me- 

 chanics, or a capacity for mastering some one of the 

 professions, considered himself fortunate in not being 

 obliged to live on the farm. 



Competition was largely a question of local mar- 

 kets. The only qualification regarded as necessary 

 was a knowledge of the business equal to that pos- 

 sessed by others of the same locality. All that is now 



