Buying at Wholesale. 349 



after deciding to take three, to remark: "How many pounds did 

 I tell you to put in there?" "Three." "Well, I guess you 

 may take one out. I believe I can get along with two." Now 

 these are extreme cases, although true ones ; but they illustrate 

 how loth farmers are to part with their hard-earned money, and it is 

 one of the reasons why, as a class, they buy things they must have 

 in driblets, instead of by the quantity. Hence, we find them 

 often buying a half-pound of tea, a dollar's worth of sugar, a 

 paper of saleratus, a lamp chimney, etc., even when they have 

 plenty of money. Then it is a well-known fact, that 300 pounds 

 of sugar, for example, will last much longer if you bring home 

 ten pounds, or a dollar's worth at once, than it would if you got 

 a barrel with that amount in and put in the cellar. The reason is 

 plain. The cook will use the sugar with a less liberal hand when 

 she gets almost out, and, perhaps, go without for a day or two 

 when it is all gone, until someone can go to town. Such a put- 

 ting on of the brakes twenty or thirty times in a year, will make 

 quite a difference in the amount used, particularly with the tea, 

 coffee, sugar, spices and other groceries. I am not drawing on 

 the imagination for this. Plenty of men, and not all farmers, 

 have told me that this was the case (I do not doubt it) , and even 

 boasted that they bought in driblets, because it was economy 

 to do so for this reason. I was trying to show a minister, with a 

 good salary, once, that he could buy his sugar by the barrel, and 

 save some $4 or more then, as I did. And he deliberately told me 

 he could save more buying ten pounds at once, and gave the 

 above reason. Well, if people are so poor that such, closeness as 

 this is necessary, I am sorry for them. But even then I believe 

 they are wrong, and that they can buy at wholesale enough 

 cheaper to more than balance the saving from being frequently 

 out of groceries. If they are not so poor as to need to scrimp so, 

 and still are so small as to buy in this way for economy, then I 

 am also sorry for them, and more so for their families. But I 

 believe the great mass of our farmers are not of this class. There 

 are mean, close-fisted men; but such will hardly be reading this 

 book. We do not find such attending our institutes, or reading 

 our papers, or striving to learn the best ways in agriculture. I 

 take it that my friends, whom I am talking with through these 

 pages, want to study out the best ways of doing all our business, 

 and that not one of us would willingly scrimp the wife and 

 daughters in what they need. I take it we are not men who care 

 to save money by getting out of articles of common daily use. 



So now let me talk to you of the advantages of buying our 

 supplies , as far as practicable, at wholesale. In the first place, they 

 will cost you far less. Years ago I used to save from $4 to $5 

 on a barrel of granulated sugar 20 to 25 per cent, interest on a 

 staple article that will not shrink or spoil. Can you use money 

 to any better advantage? Irately, since the price came down, our 



