THE GOOD OLD 1VA1, 
John Mann had a wife who was kind and true— 
A wife who loved him well; 
She cared for the home and their only child; 
But if I the truth must tell, 
She fretted and pined because John was poor, 
And his business was slow to pay; 
But he only said when she talked of change, 
We’ll stick to the good old way! 
She saw her neighbors were growing rich 
And dwelling in houses grand; 
That she was living in poverty, 
With wealth upon every hand; 
And she urged her husband to speculate, 
To risk his earnings at play; 
But he only said, “My dearest wife, 
We’ll stick to the good old way,” 
For he knew that the money that’s quickly got 
Is the money that’s quickly lost; 
And the money that stays is the money earned 
At honest endeavor’s cost. 
So he plodded along in his honest style, 
And he bettered himself each day, 
And he only said to his fretful wife, 
“We’ll stick to the j?ood old way.” 
And at last there came a terrible crash, 
When beggary, want and shame 
Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends, 
While John’s remained the same; 
For he had no debts and he gave no trust, 
My motto is this, he’d saj r — 
It’s a charm against panics of every kind, 
’Tis stick to the “good old way.” 
And his wife looked round on the little house 
That was every nail their own, 
And she asked forgiveness of honest John 
For the peevish mistrust she had shown 
But he only said, as her tearful face 
Upon his shoulder lay: 
“The good old way is the best way, wife; 
We'll stick to the good old way.” 
—New York Ledger. 
Cultivating’ and Marketing 
Potatoes. 
I do not retail my potatoes to any large 
extent and would not at all except to ac¬ 
commodate. The middlemen are welcome 
to all they make out of retailing; I much 
prefer to sell in lots of 100 bushels or more 
at a reduced price. The man who buys 
a carload is not usually as particular as the 
one who only wants a bushel, and while 
the former pays cash down, the latter yery 
likely “will hand it to you in a day or 
two.” Early in the season, while the 
skins slip, we sometimes divide a load, set¬ 
ting off 10 or 20 boxes in a place, and if 
any one along the road wants a bushel, 
when we have them in boxes, they always 
get it, if they have the money ready, as the 
horses can draw the money easier than 
they can the potatoes. In the fall we take 
some orders from families for their winter" 
supply, to be filled at our convenience, and 
when these orders amount to a load we 
fill them, delivering the potatoes in bushel 
boxes, which is but very little more trouble 
than delivering a whole load in a place, if 
it were not for collecting the pay. 
As for peddling a load from house to 
house, that is something I never did, 
neither do I ever go to market with a load 
that is not sold in advance. With the po¬ 
tatoes at home, the farmer has the ad¬ 
vantage. If he goes to market with them 
unsold, the buyer has the advantage. 
Last summer, I saw a man, who had 
come 15 miles, sell a load to a shipper for 
35 cents a bushel. The same day, the 
same shipper paid me 50 cents a bushel for 
two loads, simply because my potatoes 
were at home, and I would not move them 
for less. Doubtless the man spoken of 
could have sold his potatoes right at home 
for 35 cents or more. 
May I tell a little joke on Secretary 
Chamberlain, or, as he is more familiarly 
called in Ohio, “W. I.?” It is too good to 
keep, and he is so fond of jokes I do not 
think he will care. Once, when he vcas 
a farmer, he had a load of potatoes to sell, 
for which he was offered 40 cents a bushel 
at home, but he decided to go to Cleveland 
(24 miles) with them. The next time we 
met, in reply to the question what he got 
for his potatoes, he said “50 cents,” and 
after a minute's pause he added, without 
a trace of a smile, ‘ ‘40 cents in money and 
10 cents in experience.” 
The bushel boxes which I have spoken 
of, and which I wrote you about last year, 
are very handy to market early potatoes 
in, and to deliver potatoes in when the 
load is to be divided and left at two or 
more places, but these are not all their 
uses by any means. A farmer who raises 
but twm or three acres of potatoes can 
hardly afford to do without them, to use 
on the faim, to say nothing of marketing. 
On my farm we handle the crop with 
