78 THE farmer's education. 



read the foregoing, sits down to "study his farm," to find out 

 what the trouble is. 



The first thing he will require is absolute frankness with 

 himself. If he sets out in his study with the intent to prove 

 something, he might almost as well not begin. He is about, 

 whether he knows it or not, to engage in "scientific farming," 

 and the first teaching of science is to follow truth wherever it 

 loads. If his study of the farm convinces him that the farm 

 is all right but that the error is in the way he has used it, he 

 must be prepared to accept the conclusion. 



In the first place he will consider what crops he has raised 

 and is now raising. He is producing to sell. Where is his 

 market? Who will ultimately consume his produce? How 

 is it to get to the consumers? What will it cost to get it 

 there, including pay to those necessarily handling it? What 

 competition will it meet in the final market? How is he 

 prepared, under natural conditions as they exist, to sustain 

 competition? From what points can an adequate supply be 

 delivered to the markets in which he must compete? Of these 

 points which can probably produce cheapest? With all these 

 questions satisfactorily answered, he is prepared to study the 

 conditions of his own farni. If the result of this study con- 

 vinces him that he is among the number of those who ought 

 to produce most chea2:)ly, and his crops are articles of staple 

 production, he has established the fact that it is probably not 

 by a change of crops that he is to better his condition. More 

 especially will this be the case, if, upon looking about, he finds 

 some of his neighbors who have been producing the same 

 crops, to be personally prosperous. His conclusion must be 

 that his crops cost him too much, and more than similar 

 crops cost others. 



The next step is to tui'u to his own books and examine 

 closely the items of his own costs. If, as will j)erhaps be the 

 case, he finds there only blank pages, or accounts so kept that 

 he can not accurately tell the details of the cost of anything, 

 he can only, for the present, reach the conclusion that some 

 one is producing cheaper than he, but he does not know how. 



This may seem an awkward way to reach a study of the 



