Part 2 — PLAN No. 1103. FARM MANAGEMENT AS A VOCATION

Acknowledgment

This monograph was prepared by Dr. Walter J. Quick, Special Agent for the Federal Board for Vocational Education, under the direction of Charles H. Winslow, Chief of the Division of Research. Acknowledgment is due E. H. Thomson, Acting Chief, and Dr. E. V. Wilcox, agriculturist of the Office of Farm Management, United States Department of Agriculture, for suggestions and data, also to Dr. John Cummings, of the Research Division, for editorial assistance.

If you have been asking yourself the question, “Can I now with my disability undertake to manage a farm on business principles and expect to make a financial success of it?” you will be interested to learn that farm management is one of the most important training courses offered you by the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

Upon good business management depends success in farming, that most important industry in the United States—the industry which many of you boys returning from the war will wish to enter, the one which needs you perhaps more than any other, and in which you may expect to earn ample rewards through scientific methods.

Farm management has been defined as “the science of organization and management of farm enterprise for the purpose of securing the greatest continuous profit.” It is the business end of farming. It deals with farm organization, methods, accounts, and credits, and is, therefore, of interest to all classes of farmers, including owners, managers, and tenants.

Business Methods Pay

In agricultural affairs as they have been carried on, the lack of business methods has been amazing. Absolute mismanagement has frequently been the principal cause of discouragement, failure, and abandonment of farms. This influence has prevented many from taking up farming, but one who has a genuine love for the farm and who has or can get some practical experience on the farm may take a course of intensive study in farming and farm management under the direction of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, and then develop into a successful farm manager. The candidate must not forget, however, that farm management is a profession, and that a person without experience should not expect to become a successful farm manager in a few weeks by taking a short course at some agricultural school. What is worth getting requires time and effort in this as well as in other things.

Many who have felt full confidence in farming, and have invested their money in it and applied business principles to it, have proved that the same measure of success will attend farming under business management as attends other industries when properly managed. Tens of thousands of farmers in the United States have demonstrated this by earning substantial profits.

Diversity of Farm Business

Whatever has been true in the past, the manager of a farm to-day must be a business man capable of negotiating complicated transactions, buying and selling, and attending to the diverse details of organization and management.

You should consider well your adaptability for the diversifications of general farm life; your inclination to acquire an intimate knowledge of the principal affairs and at least a comprehensive acquaintance with everything related to farming. As a manager you must keep accurate accounts; you must know live stock as well as crops; you must be a mechanic, and ready to lend a hand with your laborers if your condition permits; in a word, you must be broad minded and tactfully co-operate with your men. You must have a practical knowledge of crops, of their seeding and harvesting, of the principles of plant breeding, propagation, and adaptation to soils. You must understand animal husbandry, breeding, growing, and feeding the animals produced to a market finish or for milk production.

Dovetailing Activities

By careful study the many activities on the farm can be so dovetailed together as to produce a maximum of crops and live stock economically. Systematic organization must be extended to every department of the farm. Labor must be efficient and well employed; teams and machinery, sufficient and in good condition; and marketing timely, it being borne in mind that quality and condition are quite as important as is quantity of product.

Mismanagement Worse Than Bad Weather

Variations in profits from farms are more largely due to mismanagement than to unfavorable seasons or fluctuating prices. Farming has become decidedly a business proposition. The abnormal demand now being made upon the United States for food and other agricultural products to be consumed at home and in European countries makes the extensive application of scientific farming imperative.

Many farms, unprofitable because of mismanagement, could by reorganization be systematized and developed into profitable, lucrative undertakings. Accompanying this reorganization, the application of business principles and practical management to scientific methods is of paramount importance.

With this better farming there must be associated reliable accounting, demonstrating a business warranting banking credit. It is often claimed that farmers can not keep books, when as a matter of fact, while they do not do bookkeeping in the generally accepted term, nine out of ten, from notes jotted down, have as accurate knowledge of the financial side of their enterprise as the majority of business men. This has been repeatedly proven by the hundreds of farm surveys, representing many States, by the Office of Farm Management of the Department of Agriculture, through which it was found possible on almost every farm to obtain an accurate financial statement from the memoranda kept by the farm owners, their managers or tenants, and to ascertain the profits.

Thorough organization with method and accounting simplifies management, curtails expenses, makes possible larger returns with less outlay, and establishes credit, which will not longer be denied the farmer when he adopts business methods and can show the bank his statement of annual business conditions.

Funds for Development Available

Farms have been likened to huge sponges from their ability to absorb money and labor, but the capable manager can make investment of money and labor in farming profitable. Uncle Sam, it may be noted, has arranged for the advance of money through the Federal Loan service, and local banks stand ready now as never before to accommodate the farmer temporarily with the necessary funds for development operations. Many farms, like some manufacturing plants, are being run to only half capacity or less by a “one-horse tenant,” caretaker, or discouraged farmer. They are awaiting men and money, ready to absorb both, and if they are reorganized and managed on a business basis they will become highly profitable.

The Need for Managers

Only 60,000 farms out of 6,361,000 employed managers and superintendents according to the 1910 census. But it is practically certain that more than one farm in a hundred would have been operated by managers had there been a larger number of effectively trained men available to men owning, or in position to own, farms large enough to justify the employment of a manager. With the number of improved farms increased to probably 7,000,000 by this date, the demand is greater for this class of trained men. The department of Agriculture and the State agricultural colleges report inability to fill numerous calls for farm managers and superintendents, and the advertisements in the agricultural and live-stock papers for them indicate that the demand continues. The small percentage of profits from the inefficient management of idle and incompetent tenants makes tens of thousands of farm owners not living on their places very desirous of securing active farm managers, capable of introducing scientific methods.

We believe, in fact, we know, that there are in the country numerous “old time” farm owners who are barely making a living, while their farms are constantly depreciating in value. Unquestionably such owners would receive better returns by employing farm managers. The combination of a number of farms with co-operative handling, under a competent farm manager, on the community principle, would reduce expenses for machinery, teams, and power, and make possible more economic employment of labor. The existence of such conditions offers an excellent field of activity to the man who is trained well enough to see and to use these opportunities. Knowing the possibilities such a man might be able to so thoroughly convince the owners of a number of inefficiently operated farms of the advantage of having them worked as a unit and thereby get them to adopt his plans. The country is full of landed estates of sufficient area to justify the owners in employing specially trained men. Syndicates and individuals have been for years buying groups of neglected farms and orchards in the southern States. These are almost invariably being handled by scientifically trained farm managers. The properties have improved under modern methods of culture and have in most cases shown profits within two or three years, notwithstanding the necessary outlay to bring the run-down property into productive condition. Similar conditions obtain in New York and other northern and western States.

Responsibility of The Manager

Managers are responsible for success in farming. Upon their experience and ability depends the securing of the “greatest continuous profit,” and, in fact, the securing, in many cases, of any profit at all. They direct, plan, and systemize the regular farm duties.

The manager must arrange an advantageous distribution of farm labor, keep in intimate touch with all the farm work, know how to do it and be able to judge when it is well done, know what reasonably to expect of his men, know how to direct labor so as to meet adequately each season’s demand and so as to provide employment at all times.

The manager must study the efficiency of different classes of workers. Too often farm profits are thought to depend upon small wages rather than upon experience and ability. The good manager will not make this mistake. The old belief that anyone can farm has been abandoned. Almost anyone can learn to farm, but the losses by the inexperience of an apprentice must be carefully avoided. Many a prospect of a full crop of corn as evidenced by the regularity of “stand in the row” has been reduced to a three-fourths return by an inexperienced plowboy plowing the young plants out or leaving them covered. An experienced plowman with an improved cultivator would have made a profit possible where the inexperienced hand caused a loss. The better worker is worthy his hire and better wages. The demand is growing in farming as in other industries for trained workers. The yields that the farm manager is able to secure are dependent so largely on his knowledge of labor and ability to direct it, that particular study should be given the labor problem of the farm by anyone preparing to assume the responsibilities of farm management.

Farm work is not accomplished by separate groups of workers so much as by the same group of workers being employed in the appropriate undertakings at different seasons, as the manager directs.

The competition for satisfactory farm labor has become so keen that far-sighted managers pay special attention to the conditions under which their laborers, as well as their skilled hands, live. A little money judiciously expended in providing buildings that are livable and homelike, a little liberality in the matter of time, a chance to garden, to keep a cow or a few hens, or to do some of the many other things that serve to keep satisfactory labor, may return a profit far out of proportion to the expense represented. In other words, the farm manager must profit by the experience of the manufacturer and avoid excessive “labor turn over.”

Small Farming as a Preparation for Farm Management

Large farms and estates employ crews of men and utilize expensive equipment. They especially require the services of well-trained and reliable farm managers, capable of selecting practical foremen and laborers, and of keeping well in hand the details of all farm processes necessary to economical management. But good management is essential also on small farms, operated by owners or tenants, as well as on large estates. The owner, and generally the tenant as well, are their own managers, and managing a small farm well is one way of learning the profession of the farm manager. The small farmer as well as the large must consider well the location, climate, soil, lay of land, water supply, and other features of his farm, so as to determine the most suitable type of farming under existing conditions. He, as well as the large farmer, must keep accounts, organize the farming operations in proper sequence, determine upon cropping, direct the preparation of soil, fertilizing, seeding, cultivating, harvesting, and all the minor details of live stock, breeding, raising, and feeding, do the buying as well as the marketing of crops, live stock, and live-stock products.

Area of Employment

The geographical area of farm operations, and consequently of the demand for farm managers, is co-extensive with the United States.

Implements and Machinery

The farm manager must have an intimate knowledge of tools and machinery and an inclination to employ only the best and most modern implements, even if special financing for a year or so must be undertaken in order to farm most profitably. Tractors, modern machinery, and labor-saving implements should be studied, wisely selected, and purchased, even if it is found necessary to buy on terms.

Why Take Training

You can hardly have had sufficient agricultural experience, if you have not had college or vocational training in some agricultural institution, to justify you in not taking advantage of the opportunity for a vocational course in farm management, if you look forward to a career in this profession.

If you have had only limited practical experience you may become a farm foreman, in which as wide an experience is not required, thus securing for you an opportunity for development and promotion to the higher place of manager. The training that will develop a good farm manager is equally valuable for promotion to the position of county agricultural agent. This work is increasing, attractive, and remunerative. Men with sufficient training, experience, and ability to “mix” with the farmers can do a valuable work. All training and experience with money saved for an initial payment are stepping stones to farm ownership. Notwithstanding disabilities, which are seldom disqualifying and rarely prohibitive, you with farm experience occupy an ideal position for training in farm management and its accompanying opportunity for advancement.

Opportunity for promotion is exceptional in farm management and will naturally be accorded you—in fact, you will be given preference—if your efficiency is evident. Men with ideas, who think and do things, are in demand on the farm. Having taken the vocational training in farm management, having skipped no links in the chain of development, and having acquired by reading and observation all the information pertaining to it, promotion will be but natural and rapid in the occupation which you have made a specialty, and upon which you have made yourself a reliable authority. Think it over seriously. Upon training depends your future, your occupation, and your success in life. You may succeed without training, but you are more likely to succeed if you have been retrained and readjusted to the new conditions which will confront you in earning a livelihood.

After training you should not expect to begin at the top unless you have had practical experience and are in a position to become an owner or a tenant at once.

Salaries

The positions of farm manager, superintendent, or foreman are considered from the salary rather than the wage standpoint and are usually of annual engagement for the calendar year, as practically all farm operations have ended with the close of the year, making it a most suitable time for the changing of men, if found advisable. The salary paid is proportionate to experience and efficiency and commensurate with that of other callings. As in other occupations, it may be small at the start, but will increase with efficiency. Commonly farm managers and superintendents are receiving annually from $1,000 to $3,000, and on large estates often $4,000 or $5,000, with many perquisites, such as dwelling, garden and truck land, fuel, and the privilege of keeping a cow, pigs, and poultry. Farm foremen are paid from $500 to $1,200 with perquisites. Sometimes the beginning salary is a little less than the minimum, but often carries a contingent bonus when the year ends with satisfactory results. The general level of pay is likely to advance under the unusual conditions which now obtain in agriculture.

Your salary in the country may be less than in the city, but your living expenses are greatly decreased by the perquisites mentioned, and in not having presented to members of the family the temptations of the city to spend money unnecessarily. Then, too, the healthful conditions of the country prevent much sickness and consequent loss of time and there are therefore fewer doctor’s bills. Therefore the saving from the annual income as farm manager is equal to, and in a majority of cases, exceeds the returns from a city position, besides placing you in line for independent ownership.

As in other positions, that of manager and the amount of salary commanded varies with the magnitude of the farm and the capacity of the manager to develop himself and the opportunities entrusted to him. A farm boy, after two years in an Agricultural College, took a foreman’s position starting at $600 a year and perquisites, the second year he received $900, then became manager at $1,800, and now receives $3,000. In five years he has quadrupled the income.

Overcoming Your Disability

Your disability has an excellent opportunity of being overcome in farming. Handicaps that would interfere in other training courses are corrected in many of the farm processes by the therapeutic exercises so interesting and variable. The opportunities are so great that the handicapped may develop his own vocation on the farm. Devices to beat your handicap and make it possible for you to do the things you did not imagine you could perform have been invented and manufactured in almost every country for the benefit of the disabled in war, which Uncle Sam has now available for your use.

When you are advised that your handicap permits you to return to the farm, the sooner the practice of your training is begun the greater will be the therapeutic value. This is your reconstruction, your individual man-struggle for restoration in correcting the disability which you acquired in the great world-struggle.

As a farm manager, landowner, tenant, supervisor, superintendent, or foreman, the experienced man capable of using a trained brain in directing others can succeed in spite of almost any disability. If the occupation places you in position to devote your time principally to the management of your farm, or the one you have in charge, you can assign to others such work as you may be incapable of performing yourself.

Education

Your knowledge of the common school branches, especially English, mathematics, and current literature will greatly assist you in studying the elementary principles of chemistry; in comprehending the analyses of soil and water, the protein and carbohydrate contents of the feeds, milk, and plants, quite necessary in the selection of feeds for the proper balancing of rations; in the understanding of plant breeding, growth, and propagation; in studying entomology and obtaining a practical knowledge of insects, pests, diseases, and the bacteria of milk, water, etc., and in acquiring some knowledge of physics and its application to the soil, drainage, buildings, machinery, heating, lighting—all vastly important to the farm manager.

Technical training is valuable in adapting many farm processes to increase the profit on certain crops and makes special projects worthy of careful consideration by the disabled, seeking side-line opportunities on the farm for alternating employment when regular operations can not be pursued.

The knowledge to be gained in the vocational training course will depend upon your previous education, experience, and application. All the time necessary will be allotted to the course. It is, however, advisable not to overtax your strength, but acquire efficiency gradually. You will be advised by the training instructors as to your ability to undertake new features and widen the scope of instruction.

Getting back home to work again should be, and doubtless is, your greatest ambition, hence the importance of reaching your decision at the earliest possible moment and applying for the training which Uncle Sam has in readiness for you. Seek an early opportunity for advisement while in the hospital. You will find the attitude of your old friends, your own family, and your former employers all that you could possibly expect, in their desire to assist you in getting “over the top” in agriculture. The disposition of your fellow workmen will be to give you every encouragement and to lend a helping hand whenever and as long as you need it. They will take a justifiable pride in you and your determination to be a man among your former fellowmen in civil life and to train for a self-supporting and honorable occupation—one that will enable you to remain true to agriculture and to your country in its efforts to produce for the world the food which is now so greatly in demand; to prevent hunger and starvation, and to quell food riots in the war-afflicted countries.

The new year 1919 is upon us and spring is rapidly approaching, reminding us of farming activities and that activities in farming should have our prompt attention this year of all others, that starvation may cease with a bountiful harvest.

To you is offered free this exceptional opportunity to readjust yourself back into civil life in American agriculture by selecting farm management as your vocational training course.

It is all up to you.

Give it consideration now.

Agricultural literature is available in all libraries and consists of treatises and textbooks suitable for reading with the idea of the definite study for perfecting knowledge to be applied in pursuing any or many lines of agriculture. Many books have been written in the story plan and are most attractive and inspiring. Others are the best translations from other languages; even “Farm Management of the Romans” can now be secured in nearly all libraries of countries prominent in agriculture.

Libraries now make it a point to keep the leading current agricultural periodicals on file for the reader.

The Department of Agriculture bulletins, agricultural reports, farmers’ bulletins, and special works on agriculture are always available to everyone desiring them; likewise similar literature issued by State agricultural colleges and experiment stations, applicable directly to local State conditions, are especially helpful and will be supplied regularly as printed, to all addresses supplied.

We append a list of bulletins germane to the subject of this monograph and which will be found interesting and beneficial.

Agricultural Bulletins

The Use of a Diary for Farm Accounts. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 782.

Farm Practices that Increase Crop Yields in Kentucky and Tennessee. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 981.

Farm Practices that Increase Crop Yields in the Gulf Coast Region. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 986.

Labor Requirements of Dairy Farms as Influenced by Milking Machines. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 423.

The Normal Day’s Work of Farm Implements, Workmen, and Crews. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 412.

A System of Farm Cost Accounting. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 572.

A Method of Analyzing the Farm Business. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 661.

Systems of Farming in Central New Jersey. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 472.

Farm Management Practice of Chester County, Pa. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 341.

Seasonal Distribution of Farm Labor in Chester County, Pa. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 528.

Labor Costs and Seasonal Distribution of Labor. Utah Agricultural College Experiment Bulletin No. 165.

A Normal Day’s Work for Various Farm Operations. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 3.

An example of Successful Farm Management in Southern New York. Bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture No. 32.

Value to Farm Families of Food, Fuel, and Use of House. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 410.

Lease Contracts Used in Renting Farms on Shares. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture No. 650.

Replanning a Farm for Profit. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 370.

Waste Land and Wasted Land on Farms. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 745.

A Simple Way to Increase Crop Yields. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 924.

Clearing Land. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 974.

Better Use of Man Labor on the Farm. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 989.

Saving Farm Labor by Harvesting Crops with Live Stock. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1008.

A System of Tenant Farming and Results. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 437.