270 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1911 



2. The production of the difficult is 

 usually accompanied by a greater profit 

 than the production of the facile. That 

 is, throughout all materials it is recognized 

 as a cardinal principle that the return is 

 in more than a just proportion to the 

 difficulty of the undertaking. The more 

 hazardous and hard to produce the crop, 

 the greater the profit to the successful 

 grower. Mushrooms sell at a higher 

 price than cabbages because they are 

 harder to grow. Peaches are more ex- 

 pensive than potatoes in most regions 

 because fewer persons can grow them 

 successfully. When the whole community 

 learns to successfully grow peaches the 

 price will drop. The difficulty of the 

 undertaking is a very fair gauge of the 

 profit to be derived from it if successful. 

 It will usually pay the incompetent man 

 to grow an easy crop. It is equally true 

 that it will also pay the competent person 

 to produce that which others can not. 



The following table shows farms classified 

 according to principal income, where 

 40 per cent, of the value came from such 

 products in 1900. 



Aver- In- Per- 



age come cent 



Number size Gross per on 



farms (acres) income acre inv. 



Hay and grain . . 1,319,854 159 $760 $4.77 16 



Livestock .... 1,564,315 227 788 3.47 16 



Cotton 1,071,545 84 430 5.15 42 



Dairy products . . 357,544 120 787 6.30 17 



Vegetables . . . 155,788 65 665 10.21 19 



Tobacco .... 106,250 90 "'615 6.82 30 



Fruits 82,060 75 915 12.22 17 



Sugar 7,174 363 5,317 14.63 26 



Flowers and plants . 6,159 7 2,991 431.83 35 



Rice 5,217 190 1,335 7.02 43 



Nursery products . 2,029 82 4,971 60.84 53 



From a consideration of this table we 

 may infer that it is more difficult and 

 requires more skill to produce nursery 

 stock than it does to grow hay and grain ; 

 the return on the investment in the 

 nursery business is very much larger, 

 yet the number of persons interested in it 

 is much smaller. There are only about 

 half as many persons that grow fruits 

 as vegetables and they make on the 

 average about half as much more. The 

 production of the difficult pays. 



3. The completed product means the 

 complete manufacture of the raw material 

 into a finished article. Grass may be 

 turned into hay, hay into milk, milk 

 into cream, and cream into butter. With 

 each change of the form of the article 

 there is usually a profit. The farmer may 

 sell his hay to a stockman who will feed 

 it to his cattle and sell the milk to a cream- 

 ery. The creamery may manufacture the 



butter and market it in the city. On the 

 other hand, the farmer may carry on 

 the entire process of manufacture and 

 reap all the accruing profit. The farm 

 should be a factory which produces its own 

 raw material and sells finished products. 



By-products are an important item 

 in the added profit of complete manufac- 

 ture. The by-product of converting hay 

 into milk is the manure which is left to 

 enrich the land. The by-product of the 

 manufacture of milk into cream is the 

 skim-milk which may be fed to young 

 pigs and poultry. The by-product of 

 the manufacture of butter from cream is 

 the buttermilk which may be sold or 

 put in the land as fertilizer. 



4. Near-by and special markets, if 

 they can be found, are a remarkable 

 means of increasing the profit. It fre- 

 quently costs twenty per cent, of the 

 selling price to haul the product from the 

 farm to the city and to sell it. The 

 railroad charges usually are at least ten per 

 cent, of the value of ordinary crops and com- 

 mission firms charge ten per cent, for selling. 



It was found that on Long Island 

 farmers were shipping vegetables to mar- 

 ket, paying freight, selling through com- 

 mission agents in the overcrowded market, 

 while within driving distance of their 

 farms colonies of city residents had their 

 vegetables exported from the city. The 

 difference between the price at which the 

 farmers sold and the residents bought 

 was over one hundred per cent. 



Farms in many sections make a business 

 of catering to a definite special market. 

 Squabs, chickens, vegetables, butter and 

 eggs may be produced at the farm for the 

 entire use of one large hotel. Many 

 hotels contract with farms to take their 

 entire product for a year or more. 



A certain experiment station attempt- 

 ed to demonstrate the proper methods 

 of preventing markets from being glutted 

 with vegetables they could not sell. The 

 station filled crates with an assortment of 

 vegetables, each crate suitable for the use 

 of a family, and so started a new in- 

 dustry in marketing. The crates are now 

 sold by thousands in many places at a large 

 advance over wholesale prices for vegetables. 



The strawberry section of Eastern Mary- 

 land shipped regularly to New York 

 for many years and each year glutted the 

 market with its own product. One man 

 shipped to Savannah, Georgia, for a 

 whole season and reaped a large profit 



until his neighbors followed his example 

 and did likewise. The special and near- 

 by market is the good fortune of those 

 who are able to find it. It can only be 

 enjoyed by those who get there first. 



5. The daily work and expense accounts 

 are an integral part of the usual business 

 house and manufacturing concern. 



Few farms have any more elaborate 

 bookkeeping forms than an old blank 

 book and a stubby pencil. Yet, the more 

 prosperous and up-to-date farms now 

 employ a regular system of double entry 

 bookkeeping for the farm business. A 

 double entry system entails the use of: 



(a) A journal in which accounts are 

 kept for all departments of the farm, 

 all workmen, all teams, etc. 



(b) A daybook or blotter in which a 

 running account is made of all items. 



The time is, usually well spent since it 

 (i) shows clearly the business relations of 

 the farmer with others at all times; (2) 

 the farmer knows at all times the net 

 standing of his possessions; (3) the ac- 

 counts clearly show the net gain in any 

 given period; and perhaps the greatest 

 value of the double entry system is (4) 

 that it makes a clear demonstration of 

 the profitable and unprofitable transac- 

 tions of the farm. 



A work account should be kept for each 

 field, each man, each team; an expense 

 account for each crop, each improvement. 

 The production of each cow should be 

 known as clearly as the production of the 

 whole herd. 



(6) The yearly inventory should be 

 made at some time during the winter; 

 after the year's work is completed and 

 before the next year begins. Many farms 

 make their inventories on January ist, 

 others at April ist. 



The inventory is a plain statement of 

 all the assets and liabilities of the farm 

 at that date. By means of a fair impar- 

 tial statement of his affairs the farmer 

 may do much to find out where his profits 

 arise, or where his money goes. Every- 

 thing of value should be taken account of, 

 the machinery and teams appraised at 

 their present value, not at what they cost. 

 If a harvester costs $125 and is expected 

 to last ten years, then $12.50 should be 

 deducted from its value each year. If a 

 colt is raised its value at the end of the 

 first year is so much clear gain. The 

 annual inventory is a splendid means of 

 looking facts squarely in the face. 



High Pressure Orcharding in New England— By Hdlister Sage, p- 



NOT A ROMANCE OF NEW LANDS, BUT A MATTER-OF-FACT RECITAL OF AN EXPERIENCE ON A HUNDRED 

 ACRES IN NEW ENGLAND, WHERE UP-TO-DATE METHODS AND INTENSIVE CULTIVATION ARE ADOPTED 



Connect- 



A SINGLE orchard in Vermont has 

 advertised the state before the 

 world, as one where fortunes may be 

 made in apples. Its crops of 1909, 

 as sold, realized $20,000 and crops 

 of previous years also brought large 



sums. Its area is only 100 acres and it 

 is located away up on Lake Champlain, 

 a portion of the farm of Charles T. 

 Holmes, in whose family it has been 

 owned for generations. 



Eye openers of this kind occasionally 



awaken Eastern farmers to the fact that 

 apples may be grown to great perfection 

 and profit here as well as in Oregon and 

 Washington. Our great mistake is this: 

 We do not persistently endeavor to grow 

 faultless fruit in quantity. On Mr. 



