54 Our Farming. 



or keeping the same line of stock that receive the same amount 

 $1,000 and can show hundreds of dollars clear net profit. This 

 is business farming, and the special farmer has the best chance to 

 make this showing. 



Aside from the profit in this kind of farming, a man ought to 

 enjoy it more to do his best in some particular line, and become 

 an expert therein, and to have his number of worries reduced. 

 When the wheat wants cutting, and the clover is getting too ripe, 

 and the bugs are destroying the potatoes, and the weeds racing 

 with the corn, and the dairy must be milked night and morning, 

 and lots of other things to do, it isn't pleasant to be a farmer any 

 way one can look at it. With less crops there is less chance of 

 .getting in this fix, and more money from the others better cared 

 for. Many a mixed farmer who was in the above fix has bought 

 his potatoes of me in the fall, after planting a lot in the spring, 

 when we have had a bad season. 



The great argument urged against special farming is that one 

 has his eggs all in a single basket. This is seldom exactly true. 

 For example, I sell wheat and potatoes, and the wheat often 

 brings $400 or more ; but practically the main income comes from 

 one source ; let it go as one basket, if you choose. Advocates of 

 mixed farming say that if one crop fails, or more, something will 

 be sure to succeed where one has a number of sources of income. 

 Well, now, my friends, this feeling is just what lets many crops 

 fail. This is altogether too weak. It isn't taking very much of 

 the " Dominion " that the Creator gave to man. When crops fail 

 in a region as favored as I live in, about nine times out of ten 

 man is to blame for it in some way or other. He may call it luck, 

 but it isn't very often. He has not done his part fully. Perhaps 

 he could not ; he had so much to do, or he had not funds to do 

 with ; but that does not alter the fact. Perhaps he w r as so driven 

 with his multitudinous cares that he had little time to think out 

 the best ways, didn't know how best to do ; has worked with his 

 hands at a dollar a day too much, w r hen a little good head-work 

 would put him on the track of getting five dollars. I did this 

 once. What is the sense of putting in crops, furnishing the seed 

 and use of land, and then making nothing out of them ? If the 

 crop is not reasonably safe on your soil, why grow it ? Why not 

 grow what is safe, or, if it isn't safe, fix it so it will be? Of 

 course, luck has a little .to do with success, but pluck has a 

 mighty sight more. What were you given brains for but to over- 

 come obstacles. Such work makes men. Before you get through 

 these pages you may find the particulars about many ways in 

 which a man can make a single basket or two strong enough to 

 trust all his eggs in, and get rid of doing so much work for noth- 

 ing putting in luck crops. I speak pretty positively friends, be- 

 cause I have been there. I have never had a failure of clover 

 (seeding or crop) in twenty-three years. I have never grown a 



