94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



but by good management on the part of himself and his 

 wife he was making more than double the money he was 

 off the farm before. His cream in the winter was sold to 

 some one in town. The cottage was shut up. Do not tell 

 me that is not agriculture. It is a high type of it. He is 

 ffettino; the best returns he can off from his farm. You are 

 not all, of course, located on a corner, but it is a simple hint 

 of what a man can do to adjust himself to the conditions. 

 There are hundreds and thousands of other things which 

 offer equally as good profit if the farmer and his wife catch 

 on to the situation. 



It is the duty of the business farmer to study more and 

 more the conditions. Find out what the people want, and 

 then give it to them. Find out what they want, and then 

 produce it for them. Keep watch of the market. Early 

 this fall a good, bright business farmer happened to be going 

 to New Jersey on business. On his way through New York 

 he found that quite low-grade apples were selling for $1.50 

 and $2.50 per barrel. He said to himself, "Apples are 

 scarce just now." He dropped the business he was on his 

 way to attend to, and returned home. The next day he had 

 fifty or sixty barrels of wind-fall apples ready for market, 

 and he got $2 a barrel for them. The apples ordinarily 

 would have gone to the cider mill. A little later, hand- 

 picked apples would not have brought any more. 



A few years ago a farmer of my acquaintance looked about 

 the markets and found that the people of New England were 

 very fond of nice beets early in the season. He built a 

 little green-house and sowed beet seed, and after the plants 

 were started he put them into pots. His neighbors laughed 

 at him because he was potting beets. " Who ever heard of 

 such an idea ! " He grew them in these pots until it was 

 safe to put them out of doors, early in April, and he had 

 magnificent beets for sale, and sold them at a tremendous 

 profit. He sold them in Springfield, Worcester, Boston 

 and Providence, and created a magnificent business. Lots 

 of people have imitated him, and the beet business has gone 

 by and he has taken up something else. He has adjusted 

 himself to the conditions. 



I found one Massachusetts farmer way back away from the 



