146 POTATO CULTURE. 



may need ? Because he is only a farmer must he be a drudge, 

 and do a certain way whether it pays or not, just because his 

 father did, or his grandfather, years ago when times were 

 altogether different ? Would he go to New York in a stage- 

 coach now, in preference to a palace car, just because his 

 father used to do so V If I, making a business of it, and 

 having soil suitable to the crop, can make money growing 

 potatoes, and A, with a clay farm and a good spring, can 

 make money making fancy butter and raising choice pigs on 

 the skimmed milk, why isn't it a sound business policy for 

 him to buy his potatoes of me, and for me to buy his butter 

 and pork ? We are both gainers by the operation. Why 

 must he fuss with an acre or two of potatoes, on soil unsuit- 

 able, and in which there is no profit, when he could spend 

 his time pushing his specialties, and make a profit by it ? 

 Just because father did so, and he knew, I suppose, or on 

 account of the old saying, " You mustn't have your eggs all 

 in one basket." But those words do not scare me at all. 

 That saying belongs to the days when Ohio was the t; Far 

 West," and it took almost all summer to go out there and 

 back. If a man raised too much of one thing then, he was 

 in a bad fix on account of the poor facilities for exchanging, 

 and the lack of markets and the scarcity of money. But, 

 how different it is now ! The whole world is one market 

 to-day. We can sell almost any thing for cash, and with 

 the cash we can buy almost any thing we want, right at our 

 doors. 



All this, friends, is no theory at all with us. We have 

 done this way some twenty years as a matter of business. 

 From having potatoes just barely pay cost of production, as 

 they usually do, finding them well suited to most of our soil, 

 we have worked in that line until we made them pay 100 or 

 even 200 per cent profit, and then bought other things we 

 could raise on the farm, but would pay little or no profit, 

 where we fussed with them in a small way. I hope you get 

 the point. For example, dairying is a good business if fol- 



