How does Boy differ from his father?

Boy understood the economic market better than his father. Boy had vision in this sense that his father lacked. Boy was willing to take economic risks for great profit.

Boy, who had more vision than his father, managed to get the old man to buy into the secondary process, the refining of the sugar from the beets, and this was proving profitable in such a surprising degree that Doc Staunton was rich in a sense far beyond Deptford’s comprehension; so rich, indeed, that they forgot that he had skipped town when the flu epidemic struck.