88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



work, even though done in a small way, where he is head 

 manager, workman, salesman and all. There are great 

 business opportunities in small special lines, as there are 

 great opportunities in extensive co-operative work. The 

 manufacturers who succeed in New England — the Massa- 

 chusetts manufacturers have been perhaps the most suc- 

 cessful in the world — have been men who are specialists, 

 whose whole time and thought and energy have been put 

 into one special line of production. Where they have suc- 

 ceeded they have turned out a high class of product, a large 

 per cent of high-grade product. If you go to the market 

 and try to buy a high grade of goods, you find they are for 

 sale at a price that must pay a profit on their manufacture. 

 The damaged goods are for sale at a very low price. They 

 sell for less than the cost of production. When there are 

 many damaged goods turned out, what does the owner do? 

 He begins with the foreman or with the head superintend- 

 ent, and says, " Look here; there are five or eight or ten 

 or twelve per cent of damaged goods this month. Is the 

 trouble in the raw material, in the machines, in the labor? 

 It must be stopped, or this mill will have to be closed." 

 And that is what is coming to agriculture. There have 

 been too many " damaged goods" in agriculture, too many 

 low grades. We have been mixing them all up with num- 

 ber one goods and trying to sell them for number one. 

 The manufacturer puts his number one goods on the market 

 as number one goods. The fact that they are number one 

 goods and sold as such guarantees that they are all right. 

 If there proves to be any damaged goods mixed in, he has 

 to refund the money. That is business. His business is to 

 look out that there are no damaged goods in what are sold 

 as first class. It is the business of the farmer to ferret out 

 for himself the way to limit the per cent of damaged goods 

 in his product ; and from a business stand-point it is only 

 good common sense for him to pack sound goods for sound 

 goods, and sell damaged goods for damaged goods. That is 

 business. We have tried to fool the public too long. Some 

 of us have been selling anything we had, and trying to get 

 a profit out of it. Competition is getting too sharp. The 

 intelligence that has been brought into agriculture through 



