HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



before hours — must be estimated at the sum 

 such labor would command in the market. 



The fallacy is only another indication of 

 that woful lack of precision of which I have 

 been speaking, and which, I am sorry to say, 

 infects more or less the current agricultural lit- 

 erature. A well-meaning man gives some ac- 

 count of an experiment that he has undertaken, 

 and is so loose in statement of details, so inex- 

 plicit, so neglectful to make known previous 

 conditions of soil, or conditions of cost, that 

 he might as well have burst a few soap-bubbles 

 in the face of the public. 



Even in repvorts of State societies, the esti- 

 mate of labor and other expenses on premium- 

 crops is so various, so conflicting, often so 

 patently and egregiously wrong, that it is quite 

 impossible to arrive even at a safe average. I 

 find among these reports, the calculation of 

 some short-figured farmer, who has competed 

 for a premium upon his carrots, and who has 

 the effrontery to put down the cost of cul- 

 tivating and harvesting an acre — at twenty dol- 

 lars! Yet he won his premium, and the esti- 

 mate stands recorded. The committee who 

 audited and accepted such a report — if donkeys 

 were on exhibition — should have been put 

 around the track. 



