STOCK-IIUSBANDRY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 185 



requires money, and to make money at farming a man must 

 go about it in a business-like way, and endeavor to make as 

 large a per cent, of profit on the capital invested as possible. 

 To do less than this would be unl)usiness-like. It would be 

 like leaving half the potatoes in the field undug, or half the 

 grass in the meadow uncut ; for to produce less than we 

 might with a given expense, is no less a waste than to leave 

 crops already grown unharvested. 



A word noAV as to the profits of farming, for I think there 

 is a fallacy connected with very much of the farm figuring. 

 To illustrate : A farmer friend, who does some lemil writing: 

 for his neighbors, was recently called to write a will for an 

 old neighbor of his, who somewhat surprised him by showing 

 a larger amount of property than our friend had supposed 

 him worth. He accordingly asked the old gentleman, after 

 he had finished the writing, if he would tell him how he had 

 managed to accumulate such a handsome property with no 

 other visible business than farming. *' Well," said the old 

 man, " I don't know as I can tell you how I made my money, 

 unless it was by raising steers and selling them at a loss ; for 

 the sale of oxen and steers has been the chief source of my 

 income, and I have generally sold them for less than cost, fig- 

 uring the value of the food consumed at the market rates in 

 my town." Was there not a fallacy here? 



There was a book published in this State, about twenty- 

 five years ago, entitled " Farming as it is," in which the 

 author attempts to show by figures that every calf raised, 

 and every crop grown, costs more than it will sell for, and 

 that our Boards of Agriculture and our agricultural societies 

 are doing nothing better than to encourage just such farming 

 as that, — raising cattle and crops and selling them at a loss. 

 Now, if our income is greater every year than the sum of our 

 actual expenses, and the balance surplus is in hand where it 

 can be counted, however badly our accounts may look and 

 however poor our figures may seem to make us, there must 

 be a fallacy about them somewhere. How do we sometimes 

 figure up the cost of our milk ? First the hay is charged 

 at full market rates, the grain is worth so much a bushel, the 

 cow is worth a certain number of dollars, and the cost of 



