Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1873 — How to Save Money in Farming. [ARTICLE]

How to Save Money in Farming.

While the snow covers the ground and the evenings are long it is a good time to make up plans for the summer campaign. Take a look at the stock in the barn, and see if there are not some animals which could be disposed of with profit. Are the cows first-rate in every particular, and do they pay a good profit upon their cost and keep, or do they scarcely pay for the food they eat, leaving nothing over ? We think that full one-half of all the cows kept by farmers do namore than pay for the food consumed during the year; consequently the owners are actually losing money, because the animals depreciate in value as they grow old. Now, the way to save money in keeping stock is to have no animal that- is not either increasing-in value in proportion to the amount of food consumed and the labor expended in taking care of it, or returning an equivalent in labor performed, as with work horses, or in milk as with eows.^ The only true way of ascertaining this fact is by keeping an account of expenditures and receipts, which we fear is seldom practiced with those who fail to save money in farming. Merchants and other tradesmen usually take an account of stock at least once a year, and know to a cent how they stand in the world financially, and their future operations are planned in accordance with past experience, and if there is need of cutting off any particular branch of trade, or economizing in any way, it is done; but the farmer alone seems to he the victim of luck, seldom knowing whether he is prosperous or otherwise until it is too late. It is also well to draw up a plan of farm operations for the coming season, and it is far better to have them a little too restricted than too comprehensive, because bad weather sometimes intervenes and puts one behindhand, especially in the spring. Better put in one acreofpota toes and do it so well that the yield will be four hundred bushels per acre, than to go over four or five acres for the same quantity. ‘ Practice the same system with all farm crops, and you will be Surprised to see how easy it is to Save labor as well as money by farming. We are quite certain that if our farmers would give this condensing system of farming a thorough trial, we should hear less of disastrous seasons and the unprofitableness of farming. They would not stop at good crops, but their horses, cows, sheep and hogs would soon have to be of the best breeds. No cows would be kept from the milk of which two to three hundred pounds of butter or its equivalent in cheese could not be made in a season. It costs no more to feed or care for one of our best cows than the very poorest, and the same is true with all other kinds of stock, and as a rule the most worthless are the most expensive to keep.

A farmer would think he was badly swindled if he had to pay twenty-five dollars more than his proportion of taxes ;, still there are thousands of animals kept by these same farmers, each of which costs fully twenty-five dollars per annum more than it yields the owner or advances in value. This is but one of the mahy leaks in fanning which would not be tolerated in any other kind of busineas. If’ a field is so poor that it will not pay a good profit on the cost of cultivating, let it alone or put it in a proper condition for producing a good crop. A man ought to know better than to waste his time in working soil that yields no return for the labor expended upon it. But there are scores of men doing this every year, and they wonder why fanning is such an unprofitable business. The very idea of a man going over an acre of land a half dozen times with various implements jnst for the sake of obtaining ten bushels of corn or any other grain, is sad enough. Still there are thousands who do this and think at the same time that they are the victims of bad luck. Jfow let every one try the coming season to economize by raising a large amount on a small space, and dispose of all stock that does not pay a profit, and see it money cannot be saved by this system.—-AW York Sun, —Cars run from Joppa to Jerusalem in two hours. 1