182 COMMON SENSE 
Retrospective.—Proft and Loss. 
MIT has been said by high authority, that in Agriculture, he 
who buys 5 per cent. too high and sells 5 per cent. too 
AH) low, loses his entire profit. If this be true, it shows that 
the profits in most agricultural pursuits are not as large as some 
would have us believe, and indeed, it is the opinion of those who are 
best informed on the subject, that the wealtlt of our’ farmers does 
not come from profits arising after the manner of those from mer- 
cantile transactions or contractors’ undertakings, but is simply the 
wages of labor, close economy having been exercised in disposing 
of it. And so, I found that a good share of the outcome of my 
poultry yard was due to.me as wages for the labor I had per- 
formed. When, therefore, about. the’ first of the year, I began 
to calculate where I stood, I was a little surprised at the extent of 
my investment, and at the very considerable part which was due 
to the labor of my own hands, for I had far exceeded the propor- 
tion of my own time which I had first allotted to the enterprise, and 
instead of half time, as I had at first calculated, T found that I had 
‘given to it pretty long hours. 
While my beginning had actually been made in June, the first sea- 
son had really closed with December, so far as that year’s stock was 
concerned, so that when early in January I turned my attention to 
the hatching of new broods, I felt that I was entering upon dan- 
other season’s work, and was really commencing a new year in 
the poultry yard as well as in the calendar. But since it was the 
yearly results that interested me most, and as my experiment 
commenced in June, I have regarded the years as beginning in 
that month. 
The first season J regarded more as a sort of apprenticeship, 
than asa fair sample of what the business would be, but on ex- 
amining the accounts, and allowing a fair value for stock and per- 
