Special Farming. 55 



crop of wheat that did not pay a good profit, and the average has 

 been very high. I have never had a failure of potatoes, nor any- 

 thing near it. I would not be boastful, but man can do almost 

 anything. The gilt edge will be taken off of a crop often, in spite 

 of us, but then it may be twice the average still, and pay grandly. 

 But I would not be unmindful that some are not as favorably sit- 

 uated as regards climate, etc., but still there is hardly any section 

 in which you cannot find some good crops every year. Make the 

 conditions on your farm the same, and you can succeed, too. 

 Mixed farming failed, all the eggs and all the baskets, on this 

 farm for years before I came here. Who changed the conditions 

 so that special farming has never failed ? It was not luck. Oh ! 

 this world is running over full of ordinary workmen in every line. 

 Climb up ; become an expert in something and not be crowded 

 any more. 



Frankly, I have always expected, sooner or later, to have a 

 bad failure of one of our crops from some cause we could not pre- 

 vent, such as rust on wheat or the potato rot. We have, of 

 course, done everything we could to ward off such troubles, but 

 probably will get caught some time. But I think we could 

 weather one failure, and not suffer much. I have been fearing 

 that potato scab might drive us out of potato growing, but it 

 looks as though man was agoing to be able to manage even that 

 soon now. Whatever we have to do, we shall never go back to a 

 little of everything. I know it is hard for some farmers to pay 

 out any money for what they could produce themselves. They 

 are not to be blamed for this. Their money comes hard, and the 

 tendency this way has been more or less inherited for generations. 

 But one should learn to overcome this feeling, if it will be for his 

 advantage. I was fortunate in never having it to overcome, hav- 

 ing been born in town. It is just as easy for me to buy a basket 

 of eggs or a dressed pig or a barrel of flour as it is a keg of nails 

 or a new chair. When I know that I can make from 50 to 200 

 per cent, net profit raising potatoes and wheat, and this work fur- 

 nishes me steady employment for my man and as much as I care 

 to do, it doesn't bother me at all to buy oats, which I could not 

 begin to make as much on. Some will say, " Yes; but I can do 

 both, and that is better yet." Perhaps, if you do all work as 

 well as it can be done, and are not overworked. But beware, lest 

 you carry it too far, and lose more than you make. Mr. A. I. 

 Root once asked the opinion of Professor Cook, of Michigan 

 Agricultural College, about my special farming. His reply was 

 that he would agree to it thus far, that one should not undertake 

 any more than he could do thoroughly well. That is all I am 

 arguing for, if by thoroughly well we are to understand about 

 double the average yields under ordinary methods, and that 

 farmers and their families and men and teams shall not be over- 

 worked. 



