Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1879 — Marketing Produce. [ARTICLE]

Marketing Produce.

This is the farmer's market. season. Consumers are laying in their winter stoics of vegetables, beef, pork, butter, apples, etc., and farmers are receiving the returns ; far their- summer?s> labor. Marketing is ope of the fine arts, .which 'every farmer does 'hot understand. It is the trade of the fanner to produce; the trade of the merchant is to bqy and sell, and it mast be confessed that the buyer is often too Shrewd for the producer. As ,we once heard it put, “ Farmers are tpo honest to ipake much profit out of their produce, M but'this is notao. • Honesty is the best policy fbr B reducer, , middle-man and consumer. t farmers ao not always sell their produce to the best advantage, it is not the fault of their honesty, bat rather of their The merchant studies the markets closely. He knpws,' what the demand is atadWhittbe ‘supply is; where there is , a surplus product and when there is a deficiency; when the market is likely tb rise and when to fall, and buys and sells accordingly, often clearing more in one day than the producer gains from his summer’s toil. True, the middle-man also loses heavily occasionally, from bad debts and mistakes in his calculations, so that the advantage is not all o«i hit side; but we wish farmers would give more attention to marketing their produce. In order to do this they need not become merchants, for We believe folly in every man sticking to his trade, but they should study some of the ways of the middlemen. One of the most successful fanners of our acquaintance when - a youth became restless on the farm, wanted to go to the city “and buy and sell,and get gain” more rapidly than He could Oh the old homestead.. His father remonstrated at first* but seeing his son bent on a mercantile life secured a clerkship for him in New York. Things went nicely for a while, but one of those whelmeditnafiy merchants, hud among others the firm for which our young, friend labored. He was thrown out of employment, and finding ing other 1 situ- ! ation, came home, sadder, but wiser, than when he went away. .HU mercantile experience was a blessed one to him. He had not only seen the folly ofseeking sudden wealth, and wap, therefore, contented with, the sjow and snre gains of the farm, but he bad tlHftV learned, systematic habits of basinesa, the mode of keeping accounts, and what jjome would call “the tricks of the trade,” tmt what WC prefer' to call the secrets cd suocess i» buying and selling, for we believe .merchants as a class are just as ' ÜbiidnoMe* as farmers. There are cheats among them, as there are in j evepr p/w bitt. tW. gse*f, distinction between the merchant and the fanner !s that’the I’fbriber 1 ’fbriber ; studies ; Jhe art of buying and selling more, and w, therefore, more shrewd in this line, lie farmer giving hU main attention to the art of producing. It- is worth while to know how tin do both. Our young [friend to whom we have alluded cannot only raise a good barrel of apples, bat he can sell k at the highest price, and his Ayrshires and Cots wolds always go off at top figures.

It is'doubtless true that some men are born farmers and others inherit a con* stitutional tendency for trade, and it is .qpt worth while to go contrary to the Taw of heredity and spoil a farmer by making a merchant of him; but every producer should. thpprinciiPjes of trade sufficiently to dispose of nis own produce to the best advantage. He imm* 'alio Mfy groceries ind arjr goods to'k greater ©T leSs extent for his family, and so far is, necessarily, a merchant. i We therefore may do farmers a service by QalUng their attention to the tricks—we mjs&u principles—of merchants. We have already, alluded to one —Studying thcl stkte or the market.' The merchant qf er the price current as soon as h» 'dally 1 newspaper comes into’ his band. He knows whether cheese is rising or, falling, and buys and splls cheese accordingly. The same is true of apples, potatoes apd ey^ry N Other product. ’‘He'not* only Tdoks'at the price cifrrent id ondbity, bp*' ltf as! the great markdid; aud production with consumptioii on a large scale. , If potatoes are rotting in one section of the country apd pot in another he knows when,to buy and when sell. This range of Vision is not connhed to one township. , The farmer having a goou crop, of apple* is too apt to think that ,*very one else has the same, and contracts to sell under this

impression at too low* rate, thus pot only diminishing his own profits but damaging his fellow-producers by, establishing low prices. Merchants ful not to run ench other's prices, knowing full well that this practice reacts to the damage of their own trade. Farmers may not Intend to undersell each other, but they do not connect together 1 as do merchants, and, each acting itade(pendenty, some one selling ignorantly at too low a rate makes a precedent which buyers plead in their purchases from others. If A sells apples at three dollars per barrel and B at two dollars, the prioe is far more likely to fall to

the latter figure thaw to rim to the former. If B has only a few inka to sell and does not mara esre at what price tkow mi _a. n —lJ mar so Tn n arrl Dv BDO WIH IlaVu SUlllu iDkM u for Ai who has a lame orchard, on which he in mainly deDendentlorm income. ■ V 1"" “"te 1 111 is aprteeiptewitli merchants tod manufacturers to give their goods an well starched and glossed, and groceries are done up in neat packages, farmers should learn a lesson in this regard from tiie manufacturer. If two tubs of butter are taken to market from the same dairy mid of the same quality, and one is neatly belled and tastefully stamped, and the other is m uncomely rolls, the fancy balls will bring adtocy price, while the untidy rolls can with difliculty be sold at any price. We have heard it said that the Star batter is no better intrinsically than that of a hundred other dairies that sells for a third as mnch, 'and that it is folly for the consumer to pay so much for a stamp; bat if ctomutei* prefer to pay this extra, then, it is folly for farmers not to put on the stamp. Good fcpka go a groat way in selling produce as well as in securing husbands. The quality of the product should be the first ‘ aim, but as a ; beautif u 1 woman may be made to look ugly byAn unbecoming dress, so good butter looks .badly and sells poorly when thrust carelessly into a rusty tin pail. A little taste bn the part of the farmer pays roundly when he goes to market, odd it i sl not enough that this taste should be’.manifest in, his products. It should be seen also, in hispera merchant. Another principle fat marketing is to sell when a thing is ready for sale, 4 the current prioe,is anything like a reasonable one. Most f&rm products are of a perishable , nature, arid" tb stbrtr them away far higher prfefea is generally ! 'A losing business, o Sometimes it . payoilbnt'it'is -tike ar lottery in which there are many blanks to onp ,prize. ( M'hnco nrV>/\ athoir Qnnloa q vonr for one dollar per barrel, were'cbmJ pelled to sell In the spring for* w very* small advance on this price, with a less of some rotten ones, and with no little labor in storing and sorting. At the harvest-time of any product, buyers are usually around in search of it, and the wise farmer strikes when the iron is hot. With such an imperishable product as wool, storage may sometimes be practiced with, profit, but we have known a farmer to refuse ninety cehts a pound for his wool, hoping to get one dollar, and afterward glad to sell it at fifty cents. Such a result makes one feel ashamed of his bed-fellow when he alone. Storage, is almost always i 'Accompanied with loss. As coal merchants put it? “You can’t pick up a ton of com -where you have dumped one.” . : if, ..f ..«,•.»* i . *• .f . i The most important factor in marketing produce is a reputation for furnishing a good article and dealing squarely. If a purchaser buys once ana ii suited, he is not only apt to buy again, but to recommend othprs, and thus the sale makes the best sort of an advertisement. — 'Alexander Hyde,in N. Y. Times.