1878.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
11 
word. Moral: Be careful what you promise, that 
you may escape the need for doing what you would 
gladly avoid. 
I have thrown my only sheet anchors to wind¬ 
ward, in giving an account of my successes in the 
making and selling of butter, and in the breeding 
and selling of Jersey cattle. However good these 
are, they will not keep me from drifting on to the 
lee shore. 'Wind and tide set too strong that way, 
and I can only own up to a most ignominious fail¬ 
ure in attempting to make a profitable operation of 
reclaiming a worn-out farm, by the application of 
the best modern improvements. 
There is one office to be performed by this story, 
which will be of value to a very large class who are 
known as “gentleman farmers,” for they are sub¬ 
ject to the same temptation which undid me—the 
temptation that comes of having too much money. 
Mr. Tyler, my backer, entered into the scheme 
with a really growing enthusiasm, and strewed my 
road with roses. Year after year, his only anxiety 
seemed to be that not enough would be done. No 
improvement could be suggested—by my tongue or 
by his own fancy—which did not produce, without 
stint, what ever money the improvement might 
need. His boundless liberality, from the very start, 
has been equalled only by his entire kindness, and 
manliness in accepting the final and direful result. 
My one great consolation, in reviewing the whole 
matter, is the feeling that the cordial personal rela¬ 
tions which have always existed between us, have 
suffered nothing from the strain which our failure 
has put upon them. 
I have given ten years’ services for ten years’ most 
valuable experience ; he has given a great deal of 
money for temporary hopes and satisfaction, fol¬ 
lowed by an assurance of failure and disappoint¬ 
ment. The account is not even—nor can I make it 
so, however much I may yet accomplish for his son 
and successor. 
To come down to details, I give the following 
figures: 
Our total outlay lias been.$125,017 18 
Divided as follows: 
Farm and Buildings. 30,202 29 
Labor. 16.802 72 
Implements. 5.096 08 
House Expenses. 9.102 06 
General Expenses,. 8.978 38 
Feed. 28,103 46 
Manure. 2,144 32 
Seeds. 513 29 
Books. 31S 58 
Livestock. 20,551 05 
Produce Sold. 3,114 85 
Against this we have the following 
credits, amounting in all to. 106,952 62 
Divided as follows: 
Farm and Buildings, (estimated value), 25.000 00 
Live Stock Sales . 32,531 80 
Live Stock on hand, (estimated value), 13,399 00 
Produce Sold... 23,321 82 
Implements on band,(estimated value), 1,500 00 
Produce on hand_ “ “ 1,200 00 
Good-will. 10,000 00 
This is the best estimate that I can possibly 
squeeze out, and it shows a deficiency of $18,024.56, 
to say nothing of a very large amount of interest, 
which,on the whole, it would not befairtoinclude; 
for the naked fact is that, so far as money has been 
lost, it was lost when it was spent, and there would 
be no more reason in calculating interest for the 
period of our enterprise, than for calculating it 
henceforth forever. The case is bad enough as it 
stands, and it is not worth while to aggravate it by 
considering money which would have been paid 
from profits if profits had been realized. 
Concerning the estimated assets given above, 
there is only this to be said The farm and build¬ 
ings have cost more than they are appraised at, and 
there has never been $500 spent on any ornamental 
improvement. We did spend some $2,000 in an ex¬ 
tension of the barn, and in a poultry-house, which 
have not much practical value. The land was con¬ 
sidered cheap at what it cost, $7,738. Its draining 
pould now be done for about $5,000. The buildings 
would now cost (the necessary ones, including the 
very fine barn) at least $9,000, and the removing of 
interior fences, road-making, grading, etc., would 
befcheap at $l,5Q0, This leaygg $1,773 to Represent 
the increased fertility of the land due to the culti¬ 
vation aud seeding down that it has received, and 
to the enormous amount of manure added to it by 
the consumption upon it of all the crops it has grown 
for 10 years, and of our $25,000 worth of purchased 
feed. The value of the live stock—as was stated 
in last month’s paper—is made at fair selling-rates, 
and it could be closed out at the price within a year, 
paying its way in the meantime. The item of im¬ 
plements I might fairly place much higher. Pro¬ 
duce on hand, (Sept 6), I lumped at the equivalent 
of 60 tons of hay at $20 per ton—it amounted to 
more than that. 
The remaining item, “good-will,” I have put at 
$10,000. I consider it worth that, under the most 
unfavorable circumstances. If I owned the farm 
to-day, and intended to follow the same line of 
business, 1 would not sell our reputation for a lar¬ 
ger sum, for it would take years of hard work and 
volumes of successful writing, to replace it. A 
new comer, unknown as a dairyman,and as a breeder 
of Jerseys, could well afford to pay more than 
$10,000 to be placed in the present position of 
“Ogden Farm,” in the estimation of the public. 
On the whole, I consider my column of credits— 
footing up $106,952.62—to be fairly constructed. 
The practical question in connection with the 
whole matter is, whether it would now be possible 
to take up the enterprise—farm, stock, and good¬ 
will—and carry it on in such away as to make a 
profit on this large valuation. As an ordinary 
farming operation, it certainly would not be possi¬ 
ble. It would call for a net revenue, over all 
charges of every kind, of about $6,500 per annum. 
But it need not be regarded as an ordinary farming 
operation. The aim should be to extend the busi¬ 
ness of buying aud selling, and breeding Jerseys 
to the utmost capacity, not only of our 73 acres, 
but of such land as we could hire in the neighbor¬ 
hood, until we wore in a position to supply any 
number of animals that might be called for by the 
constantly increasing demand. The utmost prac¬ 
ticable extension should also be given to the pro¬ 
duction of butter, and its 6ale at a high price. 
Managed in this way, I think that a business might 
be done which w'ould warrant the use of even a 
much larger capital; and it is to some such system 
as this that we must now look for success. My ex¬ 
perience as Secretary of the American Jersey Cattle 
Club, enables me to form an estimate of the extent 
of the business. The “ transfers of ownership ” 
average about 2,000 animals per annum ; and prob¬ 
ably three-quarters of this number are original 
sales, the remainder being only records of cld 
transactions. Most of these sales arc probably 
made at prices at which it would not pay us to 
compete for them, but the demand is already very 
large for really first-class animals at profitable 
prices, and it is constantly increasing. There is a 
good field now, and it is steadily extending, for any 
breeder of first-rate reputation. 
However, let us not speculate as to what may be 
done in the future. It will be better to wait, and 
tell in the future what has been done in the past— 
only let it be borne in mind that my promising days 
are over. If I make a success, I 6hall probably be 
willing to brag about it; if I make another failure, 
my pen will be otherwise engaged. 
I have hinted above that “ gentleman farmers ” 
may find food for reflection in this account. I know 
the class pretty well. They have made their mark 
in all parts of New England and the Atlantic slope 
of the Middle States. Expensive, and often fanci¬ 
ful farm buildings, walls built for the sake of get¬ 
ting rid of 6tone, artificial land founded on piles of 
artificial rock-work, expensively drained swamps, 
which refuse to stay drained, and all manner of 
cash-sepulture, constitute their sign-manual, and 
one need only drive through any hundred miles of 
the region described, to become amazed at the vast 
sums of money—earned in other ways—which have 
been, and still are being, irretrievably lost in the 
attempt to gain credit and satisfaction in “Im¬ 
proved! Agriculture.” 
We hear of this manyand of that, who is carrying 
qn his fine farm “on strict business principles,” 
and who is making a great success. Basing my 
belief pji mv experience, I fancy that thejj grmqepes, 
as a whole , will not often bear the searching scru¬ 
tiny of the slate and pencil. Success in items is fre¬ 
quent. The bare statement that we started only 
ten years ago, with a wretchedly poor little farm, 
with no reputation, and with no experience in breed¬ 
ing or in‘dairying, and have sold our $20,000 worth 
of butter, and have made a profit of over $25,000 
on our live stock, would mark us as most success¬ 
ful farmers. If we had kept no account of our out¬ 
goes, we should fancy ourselves champion Improved 
Agriculturists, whose business principles have been 
of the strictest and most successful sort. But we 
did keep accounts of everything, and they are here 
spread out before the triumphant gaze of the aver¬ 
age reader. The rules of the English telegraph 
service will not allow a man, in a despatch of his 
own writing, even to call himself a “ duller.” Let 
me take advantage of the amenities of the agricul¬ 
tural press, and refrain from naming my own obvi¬ 
ous qualities. The impression under wiiich I am 
now laboring is, that I cannot, in any system of strict 
terminology, be designated as an entire success. 
At the same time, I have enough fight left in me 
yet to wish that I might measure trial-balances 
with some who may fancy themselves my betters. 
Look at my labor account; nearly $1,700 a year— 
added to a charge for board of over $900 a year— 
yet everything like draining, wall moving, road 
making, etc., is covered by the item “Farm and 
Buildings.” I have never hired men because times 
were hard, and they needed help ; I have never 
paid high wages; and I have always had long hours. 
I have done no fancy work of any sort—have even 
been called untidy, and have acknowledged it. In 
spite of all this, the whole of the large sum made 
on live stock, has gone this road. Look again at 
the amount spent for “feed,” (including hired pas¬ 
ture, but none of the products of our own soil). It 
has swamped our total butter sales, and more than 
enough more to pay the original cost of the farm. 
Then, too, that horrible sum on “ General Ex¬ 
penses,” little odds and ends like postage, and 
horse-shoeing, and harness mending, and all man¬ 
ner of extras, it has run up to a sum nearly equal 
to the cost of boarding hands whose wages were 
more than $16,000. The necessary conclusion seems 
to me to be that the steady and inevitable out-flow 
of money required in carrying on a farm on any¬ 
thing approaching a “ grand ” scale, is more than 
the business can stand, even with the advantage of 
exceptionally’ high prices. Such farming as we 
have undertaken can not pay, unless it is done on 
a much larger or on a much smaller scale—small 
enough for the farmer and his family to do most 
of the work, or large enough for the commercial 
element to support the industrial element. 
That Ogden Farm offers at least equally valuable 
hints to the farmer who carries on his own place 
very largely with his own labor, and who has only 
sufficient capital to carry it on in a small and care¬ 
ful way, I think no one who has followed its opera¬ 
tions, as detailed in these papers for eight years 
past, will question. We seem to have made it very- 
clear that to manage a small farm as one would 
manage a large factory, is not profitable. But, in¬ 
cidentally, there appears ample evidence that the 
small farmer may profit very much by an improve¬ 
ment of his processes, and by getting a reputation 
for producing only goods of the best quality-. 
Wc have had exceptional advantages, and have 
been able to get higher prices than a small, single- 
handed farmer could get under ordinary conditions 
_but, thus far, our advantages have cost more 
than they have come to. Every butter-making 
farmer in the country, even if he keeps but a half 
dozen cows, may, if he will keep good Jerseys, or 
breed to a good Jersey bull, and raise his best 
heifer calves, soon put himself in a position to get 
an increased price on his butter, and this increase 
will be all profit. If he improves the quality of his 
cows by crossing with Jersey blood, he will be able 
to get an extra price for his surplus, if sold only to 
his own neighbors. It he breeds a good quality 
of Registered Stock, ho can depend on a good sale 
tor his increase, at very remunerative prices. I in¬ 
stance these two items because they are the ones in 
which I have had experience. The same result 
would follow equal cav§ in auy other kiiid of stock 
