186 SOILS 



high and they lose from 5 to 25 per cent, of their 

 valuation every year, even with the best of care. 

 They are a very expensive part of the farm equip- 

 ment, more expensive in proportion to their utility 

 than almost any other item in farm management. 

 It is business policy to get along with just as few 

 tools as possible. Many American farmers have 

 too many. Some men seem to have a sort of 

 mania for collecting everything new or unique in 

 the way of tools. They lie around beneath the 

 apple trees, back of the woodshed and beneath the 

 eaves of the overcrowded tool shed, rapidly falling 

 into disuse, then into rustiness and finally into 

 rottenness. It is an expensive pastime. 



Every tool that is not used represents just so 

 much capital, not tied up, but wasted. I know a 

 farmer wno has over twenty-five kinds of plows and 

 harrows, yet he uses but six or seven in the work of 

 his farm and finds these sufficient. He has at 

 least $600 tied up in tools that he rarely uses and 

 could get along without just as well. This is not 

 business. The first cost of the few tools that are 

 absolutely necessary is large enough and their 

 depreciation rapid enough, without adding the 

 weight of tools that are not needed. It is all right 

 to try new tools if it can be afforded,, but most 

 people had better stick to the few tools that they 

 have found necessary for satisfactory results. 



A Variety oj Tools Needed. These remarks 

 about the common and needless waste on American 

 farms because of a superfluity of tools are not 

 meant to deny that a considerable variety of tools 

 are needed on most farms. A good farmer, like 

 a good mechanic, has a tool for every purpose, the 

 best one to accomplish a certain specific result in 

 handling the soil or crop, not one that is fairly 



