HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 245 



upon the farm no matter whether done by the 

 master or the master's son, or master's wife no 

 matter whether done after hours or before hours 

 must be estimated at the sum such labor would com- 

 mand in the market. 



The fallacy is only another indication of that 

 woful lack of precision of which I have been speak- 

 ing, and which, I am sorry to say, infects more or less 

 the current Agricultural literature. A well-meaning 

 man gives some account of an experiment that he 

 has undertaken, and is so loose in statement of 

 details, so inexplicit, so neglectful to make known 

 previous conditions of soil, or conditions of cost, that 

 he might as well have burst a few soap-bubbles in 

 the face of the public. 



Even in reports of State societies, the estimate of 

 labor and other expenses on premium-crops is so 

 various, so conflicting, often so patently and egre- 

 giously wrong, that it is quite impossible to arrive 

 even at a safe average. I find among these reports, 

 the calculation of some short-figured fanner, who has 

 competed for a premium upon his carrots, and who 

 has the effrontery to put down the cost of cultivating 

 and harvesting an acre at twenty dollars ! Yet he 

 won his premium, and the estimate stands recorded. 

 The committee who audited and accepted such a 

 report if donkeys were on exhibition should have 

 been put round the track. 



