Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1876 — Weigh or Measure Farm Products. [ARTICLE]

Weigh or Measure Farm Products.

If every fanner would weigh or treasure his products correctly belore sending or hauling them to market, he might escape much annoyance as well as direct loss. Although we begin our investigations into the cause of so much complaint of short weight or measure in farm products reaching the markets by assuming that both buyer and seller are strictly honest, there is still left abundance of room for errors which may engender much bitter feeling between dealers. There are very few farmers who possess correct scales with which to weigh all articles mid by weight, before they are taken to market; hence there is much guessiag where actual knowledge might be employed instead. The bushel or half bushel measures employed are usually little better than guesses at the quantity they are supposed to hold, and disappointments or actual losses follow- their use. If a farmer sends the grocer six bushels of potatoes or apples, and only charges for five, the difference is seldom made op, for it is a rule of trade for both parties to strive for the best of the bargain. Every former should provide himself with correct scales and measured, and then carefully weigh or measure every article, and note down the quantity before it leaves his premises. Then he will have the means of knowing positively whether cheating is attempted, or successfully practiced by those who purchase his products. Without some such precautionary measure, he is at the mercy of others, whether they are honest or otherwise. Of course it is not to be supposed that every farmer can afford to purchase large platform scales of sufficient capacity to weigh a load of hay or coal; but a hum-

ber can nnite, and seenre at least one for an entire neighborhood. But every farmer who raises anything to sell can certainly afford to own scales Of sufficient capacity to weigh all small articles ranging from fifty to five hundred pounds. Correct weight# and measures promote -correct habits, and a man who makes a practice of taking facts os a basis for his operations off the farm will soon get in the way of studying loss and gain in the results. If he should have two cows giving the same quantity of milk per diem, and If, from actual test, the milk of one yielded twenty per cent, more butter than the.ofher , he would very naturally place corresponding valuation op each, keeping and breeding from the best, and selling the othef. : By ehkredtly Weighing or measuring all the products of the farm, a man soon discovers whether he is making or losing in following any particular system of culture; as well as what kind of stock is best adapted to his locality or circumstances. It is this exactness in all things pertaining to farming which makes the difference between what is called scientific agriculture and the unscientific and slovenly. If a man cannot tell how many pounds of corn it takes to make a pound or pork, or whether it makes any difference to what breed of hogs it is fed, he is certainly groping in the dark, and will never reach light. If farming, as a whole, pays less profit on the amount of capital and labor invested than a majority of other callings, as is generally claimed, it must be owing to the want of skill in those engaged in it. The groceryman who buys pork for six cents a pound and sells it for seven or eight knows the amount of profit; but the farmer can seldom tell whether he makes or loses money when disposing of it at market prices, for he has neither weighed nor measured the materials from which it has been produced. Whenever a farmer can put his finger upon the figures which will inform him just how much it costs to produce a pound of pork, beef, mutton or wool, as well as a bushel of corn, oats, wheat, or other grain, he will possess a pretty safe guide for future operations. If pork shows most profit, then he has only to push his whole strength and capital in that direction ; and the same will be true with other products of the farm. This positive knowledge of farm operations can be obtained as readily as the manufacturers of cloth can ascertain how much each yard costs, delivered On the counters of their customers. When farmers learn to do this, then, and not till then, will they know just what can or cannot be made in farming.— K. Y. Bnn.