No. 4.] BUSINESS SIDE OF AGRICULTURE. 95 



railroad had a farm suitable for food products, hay, corn, 

 etc. He put up a big silo and began boarding city horses. 

 He kept them on ensilage and bran, and was getting a fair 

 price for their board. He has studied how to winter them 

 on this food cheaply, and turn them out in good condition 

 in the spring. His farm is being enriched by it. 



One of my western New York friends who is a successful 

 man and who has made a good deal of money in agriculture 

 says that he believed his whole success is due to his father 

 getting up from the breakfast table one morning when he 

 was a boy and going out to the road and buying a load of 

 clover hay. The load was at the barn when the boy was 

 through breakfast. The boy asked his father why he had 

 bought the clover hay when already he had more hay than 

 he wanted. His father said, " Never let a load of clover hay 

 go past your farm. Sell your timothy and buy clover." 

 He has been producing clover and selling other crops, but 

 the clover, never. 



I came across another little business trick that is business, 

 In New York the other day a farmer — a Massachusetts or a 

 Connecticut farmer would not have done it — shipped twenty 

 barrels of Baldwin apples to market, all grades in the same 

 barrel. The best offer he had was $2 per barrel. The com- 

 mission man thought he could get more for them, and re- 

 sorted them. The twenty barrels originally would have sold 

 for $2 per barrel. He received for seven barrels $3.50 each, 

 for six barrels $3 each, for four barrels $1.75 each, and for 

 two barrels $1. They shrunk one barrel. He got $50 as 

 against $40, or twenty-five per cent advance in the business 

 transaction. Who gets the $10? the commission man or the 

 farmer ? Whom did it belong to ? They were the farmer's 

 apples, but the New York man put the "business" into 

 them. I will leave that to you. I do not know who got it, 

 but I could guess. I know in many instances of that kind 

 commission men who are sharp business men do work of 

 that kind, and simply charge the farmer for the cost and give 

 him the benefit. The commission man who re-sorts and 

 repacks apples increases the value' from ten to forty per 

 cent ; and they sometimes charge the farmer for the cost of 

 the labor, less their commission, and give the farmer the 



