of equipment varies. All the
things named under the plant are in the nature of an annual charge
against income. The charge under materials may or may not be an annual
charge. If a man invests $2,000 in 50 head of cattle, which he intends
to feed and sell for $3,250 at the end of one hundred days, he does
not have to calculate interest on $2,000 for a year, but only for 100
days. Cattle paper is held in large quantities by banks in the cattle
feeding districts of the United States. The farmer would, in fact, be
unwise to keep $2,000 in the bank nine months in the year in order to
use it three months. Like any other business man, if he has the money,
he invests it and borrows the money to buy his cattle. The same thing
applies to food and fertilizers. If the food is fed to cattle, some of
the money invested in the food must pay interest during the fattening
period. Food fed to dairy cattle and chickens may be paid for out of
each day's income. In practice, the amount of money invested in food
for dairy cattle and chickens is dependent only upon the most
economical unit of purchase. One may apply fertilizers to buckwheat,
give a three months' note for the fertilizer, and pay the note out of
the proceeds of the crop. If the fertilizer is applied to one-year-old
apple trees, this investment may be required to pay interest for
fifteen years.

The same principle applies to supplies. If one starts into raising
horses for sale, he needs to have some money or other income on which
his laborers and his own family can live, say for five years, this
being the age at which a horse is supposed to become salable. More
people would raise apples and horses if they could afford to wait for
the return on the investment.

While this is a serious handicap, it is an advantage to the man who
arranges his farming methods so that he can secure an income from some
other source in the interim. The young farmer will do wisely to so
arrange his farm methods that a portion, perhaps the major portion of
his farm, will give him quick returns while making some long-time
investments, which later in life will give him a greater return
because so few people are sufficiently forehanded to make them.

CHAPTER XI

HOW TO ESTIMATE PROFITS

No man who engages in manufacturing or merchandising knows how much he
is going to make annually during life. Much less does he know how much
he will be wort