C. C. Bowsfield - Making the Farm Pay

MAKING THE FARM PAY

BY
C. C. BOWSFIELD

1913

MAKING THE FARM PAY

MODERN farming, as the author views the subject, requires varied information as well as unflagging zeal and industry. It needs the application of commercial ideas. Real success in agriculture can only be attained by keeping up with changing conditions and developing a well-balanced business programme to go with the tilling of the soil.

The average land owner, or the old-fashioned farmer, as he is sometimes referred to, has a great deal of practical knowledge, and yet is deficient in some of the most salient requirements. He may know how to produce a good crop and not know how to sell it to the best advantage. No citizen surpasses him in the skill and industry with which he performs his labor, but in many cases his time is frittered away with the least profitable of products, while he overlooks opportunities to meet a constant market demand for articles which return large profits.

Worse than this, he follows a method which turns agricultural work into drudgery, and his sons and daughters forsake the farm home as soon as they are old enough to assert a little independence. At this point the greatest failures are to be recorded. A situation has developed as a result of these existing conditions in the country which is a serious menace to American society. The farmers are deprived of the earnest, intelligent help which naturally belongs to them, rural society loses one of its best elements, the cities are overcrowded and all parties at interest are losers. The nation itself is injured.

Farm life need not be more irksome than clerking or running a typewriter. It ought to be made much more attractive and it can also be vastly more profitable than it is. Better homes and more social enjoyment, with greater contentment and happiness, will come to dwellers in the country when they grasp the eternal truth that they have the noblest vocation on earth and one that may be made to yield an income fully as large as that of the average city business man.

This whole subject of making agriculture more profitable and enjoyable is approached in a spirit of sympathy. The author resides on a farm and has long been a land owner. He knows the difference between book farming and the actual work of tilling the soil or taking care of live stock. No one appreciates more fully than he what a great fund of information a person must possess to be even an ordinary farmer. As a rule people who dwell in the country are also well posted on political affairs and are patriotic citizens. They are above the average in these respects.

In the effort to show that farmers are lacking in commercial skill it is permissible to repeat that they are the only business people who have nothing to say either in fixing the prices which they get for their own goods or which they pay for other peoples. This want of market ability is a result of their isolated life and the old method of raising a single crop, such as wheat or corn. With steady improvement in transportation facilities and other modern conveniences there will come greater diversity in agriculture and a general betterment in rural affairs. The tiller of the soil will be a business man, who will not only devote his land to products which naturally pay best, but who will have something to say about price making.

Prices of agricultural commodities are now on such a high level that land owners may enter upon a period of money making. It is not true, however, that farmers are to any great extent responsible for the high cost of living. Producers are not overpaid. High prices are mainly due to business conditions for which people in the rural districts have no responsibility. Consumers are at the mercy of a system which involves unreasonable expense and too many middlemen.

It would be to the advantage of farmers, however, to have the expense of handling agricultural commodities lessened. They may help toward the attainment of this end by adopting better methods of marketing than now prevail. Consumers as well as themselves would benefit by such a movement.

This book is published in the hope of assisting farmers to improve their position. There is a widespread and intelligent movement toward more diversified and intensive farming, which I heartily endorse. By this system the farm can be made to pay better than it does, because it aims at greater production on each acre cultivated and at meeting special market requirements. The one great point in commercial farming is to produce those articles which pay best.

There is a continual and expanding market for numerous products that are easily raised, and which, by their very diversity, are a guarantee against failure. The market has never been oversupplied with fruits, broilers, mushrooms, honey, squabs, berries and the like. There is the keenest sort of demand today all over the country for extra nice butter, eggs and poultry. The need of parsnips, beets, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, beans and other kinds of vegetables is incessant, and in all of these lines there is a profit far exceeding that gained from large single crops or big dairies.

IN common with thousands of others I am strongly impressed with the belief that the subject of better farming in America is the most important now occupying the attention of the commercial world. By better farming is meant a system that will produce larger profits and an easier living for those who till the soil, as well as a greater acreage production.

In discussing this subject I have in mind these salient propositions: Farmers who are not capitalists occupy too much land. They would do better farming and attain better results on smaller tracts. The little farm requires less drudgery than the large one.

It affords a more enjoyable existence and tends to stimulate the interest of the young people in progressive agriculture. To reduce the size of farms will make it easier for poor men to acquire land, consequently the number of owners must increase.

With more owners and renewed interest, our rural population will be augmented. By increasing the production of commodities per acre, we will have heavier exports, and the prosperity of the nation will be enhanced. These considerations are worthy of our attention and highest intelligence.

The little-farm proposition is appealingly strong, both to the man in the country and the resident of the city. It is, in fact, the hope of the American farmer, and of the business world today. Through this modern system the rural family is to escape much of its drudgery, and the city family is to obtain commodities at lower prices. By the new method of intensive and diversified agriculture, country life is to become easier and more attractive, both to the young and to the old.

Big farms are all right for those who are equipped to handle them properly, but they are not desirable for people who have not capital enough to hire plenty of help, and organize in a businesslike way, to secure good results.

It is the evolution that bothers the average farmer. How can he make the change without losses? If he sells off half his land to enable him to farm in the modern, intensive fashion, has he any guarantee that he will not fail in this, and so find himself at the end of a few years, minus both land and capital?

He can best satisfy himself on this point by making an easy comparison of crop values. Such a comparison will startle some of the old-fashioned agriculturists, who persist in running large farms on the one crop idea.