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products that what is not first-rate is
only to be disposed of at starvation
prices. An article which is the best of
its kind will always sell at a profit.
Horses may be cheap, but the very best
never are; a fine cow never goes begging
for a purchaser. If a lamb, or a
calf, or hog is prime, the buyer will come
to you.

Gilt-edge butter that never varies in
quality is in demand; wheat, that thoroughness
in cultivation and fertilization
has just made yield the maximum if
from the best seed and cleaned perfectly,
will bring five to ten cents per bushel
more than that which is mixed with rye
and cockle and poorly cleaned; pure
timothy or clover hay, cut and handled
in the best manner, is worth from fifteen
to twenty dollars per ton, when an
inferior article is hard to sell at ten or
twelve; poultry, which is fat and well
dressed, will be wanted at sixteen and
eighteen cents per pound; when that
which is poor or spoiled in the dressing
is only to be disposed of at ten or twelve.

In short, first-class services or first-class
articles will bring first class prices,
and that which is mediocre or inferior
will have to compete with a great deal
else which is mediocre and inferior, and
will bring very little, which is in reality
all that it is worth.

It is natural for us to compare our
successes or failure with those of others:
not that we do not want others to succeed,
but that we do not like to be out-stripped
by those who have a similar
aim.

Have we not all been impressed in
this sort of friendly rivalry with what a
terrible competition a thorough-going,
untiring, unceasing man is? We may
seem for a time to have left him behind,
and think we can stop to rest for while,
but he "goes on forever," and the next
thing we know all our energies are taxed
to recover, if possible, what he gained
while we relaxed. He appalls us!
Time have been hard, difficulties have
arisen, but he has seemingly been unconscious
of it all—he has simply gone
on.

We might think him allied to the
tireless force of nature. He never
seems to hurry, for if he did, his work
would not be well done, but he never
stops. The finite man has somehow
come into possession of an infinite
force! And what is the result? No
matter what he attempts he succeeds.
"And there is nothing that succeeds like
success."