DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



107 



all these and a multitude of other cases, it is found that it pays to take 

 trouble. 



There is probably no part in the farmer's business where this needs 

 to be so much emphasized as in his buying and selling. It is so much 

 less trouble to buy all one's supplies at retail as they are needed than to 

 plan ahead and buy at wholesale; and to sell one's products at wholesale 

 and in bulk to the nearest buyer than to work out a better marketing 

 scheme, that this practice of buying everything at retail and selling at 

 wholesale has become almost universal. It takes a very rich soil, or very 

 hard work on the farmer's part, or both, to make up the losses resulting 

 from this system. The farmer is becoming, almost in the same sense as 

 the manufacturer, a buyer of raw material such as fertilizers, seeds, foods, 

 machinery, livestock, etc. What manufacturer would expect to prosper 

 if he depended upon the retail stores to supply him with raw materials as 

 they were needed and at retail prices? How many manufacturers would 

 expect to prosper if they did not have selling agencies but waited for buy- 

 ers to come around and offer to buy their products after they were finished ? 



Of almost as great importance is the question of making the farm 

 garden, poultry yard, orchard, and dairy, support the farmer's family. All 

 these things require the taking of trouble. It is less trouble to put all 

 one's time on a money crop, to haul it to town and sell it, and to haul from 

 the store everything which the family consumes than to give attention 

 to gardens, fruits, poultry, pigs, and cows. It is also less profitable. The 

 products which the farmer's family consumes are sold to the best market 

 in the world. The farmer should credit to the garden, the orchard, the 

 poultry yard, the cow, and the pigpen, the retail prices which he would 

 otherwise pay for food, not half so good, bought at retail. 



Needless to say, these things must be carefully planned and managed. 

 That requires the taking of trouble. Farmers who are not capable of, or 

 willing to take pains in planning and managing these parts of their busi- 

 ness will probably do quite as well by going on in the old way of hauling 

 all their stuff to market and hauling home again the goods which the 

 family consumes. But their lack of prosperity will be due to the fact 

 that, like the aged savage already referred to, they have concluded that 

 civilization and progress are not worth the trouble. 



But after all, when one once gets accustomed to taking pains it ceases 

 to be painful to keep on. It is only the beginning from which we shrink. 

 When one gets into the habit of keeping accounts, of rotating and diversi- 

 fying crops, of making the farm feed the family, and running cooperative 

 enterprises, it is not half as much trouble as it was feared that it would 

 be. The real test of a man's quality is his ability to begin taking pains. 



Our branch of the human race has not yet demonstrated its ability to 

 live in cities. We have been a pioneering race for something like 2000 

 years, and no one knows how much longer. It is probably harder for a 

 race to change the habits of its lifetime than it is for an individual. This 

 habit has made us an outdoor race, whose chief characteristic is strenuous 



