What if Every One Should Do So? 231 



large profit besides. We have done this in and of ourselves. It 

 has not taken any organization or legislation to accomplish it. 

 And nothing of the kind will ever make the other farmer's work 

 in this line profitable again. He is behind the times. He can 

 work his way up to us or beyond by better methods and practices 

 only. Thus he can reduce the cost of production so that there 

 will be a fine profit in the business. One hundred bushels per 

 acre is a large average crop for Ohio. This yield, as ordinarily 

 grown, costs just about what it sells for, when you count seed, all 

 labor, use of land, etc. This is "agricultural depression." But 

 suppose by better methods, such as using three horses instead of 

 two, with one driver, machinery to plant, harrow to save hoeing, 

 long rows to save time, one-eye seed to save money at start, 

 machinery to dig, boxes to handle, etc., you reduce the cost of 

 producing a crop some ten dollars per acre ; and then you grow 

 twice as many per acre by thorough draining, manure saving, 

 clover growing, level culture, fine, unsprouted seed, etc., and get 

 200 bushels per acre. Can't you see that there may be more than 

 100 per cent, clear profit in the business ? Sometimes it will do 

 much better even than this. This is the way out of agricultural 

 depression in this particular line. 



If you keep cows, say five or six, and they make 150 pounds 

 of butter a year apiece, that is agricultural depression, particularly 

 if sold at ten or fifteen cents a pound, as thousands do in Ohio. 

 If you make a business of producing butter, test your cows and 

 work off the poor ones, using only thoroughbred sires of a but- 

 ter breed, and feed properly and get some 300 pounds of butter 

 per cow per year, and have conveniences to make the best, as you 

 can afford, if you make a business of it, and get twenty to thirty 

 cents a pound the year round, as some do, this is the way out of 

 agricultural depression in this line. The road has been traveled 

 and is now well known. Will you start out on it ? 



So it is in all lines of farming. I can take you to men who 

 are making money in any line you may select doing it now, 

 with present low prices and the only way out in the future for us 

 that I can see is the same road they have traveled. Work in 

 every way you can to raise larger crops, more bushels per acre, more 

 pounds of better butter per cow, larger pigs at a given age, and 

 more of them if you want to, and work as systematically to 

 produce this result at a less cost of production than the ordinary, 

 and you will be all right. One year a friend said to the writer, 

 " Well, I guess you won't make much this year ; potatoes are 

 going to be so low." My answer was, " I have twice as many 

 to sell as I have ever had before." I was all right. 



Now, should every reader of this book double his yield, or 

 bring it up to the highest practical figures, it would not make 

 much difference with the world's prices. It is a big world. But 

 it would make a great difference in the prosperity of the readers. 



