THE SCIENTIFIC FARMER. 35 



fanner by enabling him to do more work, and perhaps better 

 work, for a given sum of money, thus reducing cost. The 

 bacteriologist saves money to the farmer in enabling him, 

 for example, to avoid raising swine to die of hog cholera, by 

 inoculating them with serum, upon the same principle that he 

 protects his child from smallpox. The object of all applied 

 science is to reduce cost by reducing the labor of production, 

 or protecting the finished or half-completed product. 



A portion, then, of the "knowledge" which is tlie "Hope" 

 of the farmer is the acquaintance, so far as he can possibly 

 obtain it, with whatever science is from day to day discovering 

 of that which will reduce cost of production. Nothing else 

 will enable the farmer to compete with his fellows, and main- 

 tain his economic existence. Thrift and industry are assumed. 

 All iinderstand the necessity of those virtues; but industry 

 improperly applied will fail of its reward, and it is only 

 knowledge which enables industry to be wisely directed. It 

 is essential that some portion of the time which the thrifty 

 farmer now devotes to manual labor shall be withdrawn from 

 that and expended in learning how to most wisely employ 

 that labor. 



But all this is only one aspect of the case. While the art of 

 production is possessed in some degree by all farmers, very 

 little is known by them of the science of marketing, and the art 

 of maintaining business-like methods is hardly understood at 

 all. In the matter of reducing costs, for example, very few 

 farmers know the cost of anything which they produce. The 

 subject of reducing the cost of a product can only be intelli- 

 gently approached upon the basis of a record of the details of 

 present costs. It is not necessary to enlarge upon this, for 

 every farmer knows it. He does not keep these records in 

 America, because hitherto he has been able to live without it. 

 A merchant who has no competition within fifty miles need 

 not know his cost very accurately, for his selling prices will 

 be high enough to cover waste, but to the merchant in a 

 busy town every item of cost is essential and is duly recorded. 

 Increasing competition and deteriorating soils make this 

 equally essential to the modern farmer. 



