The Rural Voice, 1980-02, Page 14Farming in the past
Specialized farming
BY ADRIAN VOS
One hundred years ago controversy
raged in the farm community about the
merits of specialized farming. In his book
"Farming for Profit", John Read, a farmer
and journalist from New England told how
in 1860" . . . farmers in the Connecticut
Valley were doing a small but reasonably
profitable business. They cultivated a
variety of crops, produced on their own
farms a large part of their own household
necessities, and had no debts which they
could not pay. But in an evil hour some
venturesome spirits found that tobacco
would pay a large profit. The price
advanced rapidly, the demand increased,
and a multitude of farmers who had been in
the habit of growing corn, potatoes and
hay, turned to the culture of this crop. Like
the tulip mania which in olden times
well-nigh ruined the staid old inhabitants
of Holland, this tobacco mania seemed
to fairly p ossess the souls of men who had
been regarded as wise counsellors and
worthy examples. young men. . . .went
into debt for both land and buildings with a
reck lessness almost sublime. Land
rapidly advanced in price. In some sections
land which was barely worth one hundred
dollars was sold for 500 dollars per acre.
Men seemed to think that they could afford
almost any price for land."
"Not only land at inflated prices but they
borrowed money for buildings and
expected , by growing tobacco, to make
money enough to pay for everything which
they wanted to buy .
The idea also became firmly fixed in a
great many minds that the topacco grower
could buy all the ordinary farm products
cheaper than he could grow them. Many a
farmer, who before grew corn for half the
selling price, was convinced that he could
buy it for less than the actual cost of
cultivation. The inevitable result was that
farmers had nothing but tobacco to sell,
but, far worse, they were constantly
obliged to buy things that they had
formerly grown at home. After a time the
farms began to show unmistakable signs of
decline, for all the fertilizer had been
applied to the few tobacco fields and the
rest of the farm had been robbed in order
to make the tobacco fields rich enough to
produce a good crop."
"Tobacco proved to be a very uncertain
crop. Some seasons were not favorable and
the crop did not do well. One summer it
was hail; another one it was drought; at
other times the tobacco worm proved
destructive; and when these evils were
avoided or overcome, others seemed to be
ready to carry on the ruinous work."
Curing was often not done right, cutting
the price. Then the market collapsed and
the farmers were stuck with a crop they
couldn't eat and was good for nothing.
"Many farmers found debts pressing
heavily with no means of payment.
Properties declined until an acre had only a
nominal value. Like the growth of Jonah's
gourd, the prosperity of this industry was
sudden and brilliant; while like the decay
of that vine, whose history will be
immortal, its failure was sudden and
unexpected and complete."
Mr. Read shows that the regular food
producing farmers in the end came out on
top of the heap and " ... are now regarded
as successful farmers by men who thought
them a few years ago 'old fogies', and were
sure that they were lacking in enterprise as
well as in judgement."
He goes on to show that it is not the
tobacco that is at fault. The fault lies in
specialization. These farmers had no other
crop to fall back on when their single crop
failed.
PG. 12 THE RURAL VOICE/FEBRUARY 1980
A day in the life
of a farmer --
on holiday.
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The specialists who recommended
specializing came in for a severe tongue
lashing. Read agreed that the yield of a
specialized crop probably will be greater
than if it is one of several but to say, as the
specialists did, that unless one specialized
it was cheaper to buy, aroused his ire.
"That this is false reasoning," he said,
"is abundantly proved by the fact that the
average farmer supports a family and pays
taxes without going into debt."
It seems that we in our modern wisdom
have long ago stopped listening to the John
Reads of agriculture. Our specialists have
for 25 years been telling us that we sHlould
specialize and get bigger and we have
followed their advice. A s a result we are in
debt. as Read experienced with his
Connecticut farmers.
How often have we heard our soil
specialists in the last few years proclaim
that we must go back to crop rotation?
John Read knew the dangers of the
single crop a hundred years ago. He wrote
about the "worn-out tobacco land of
Virginia, the exhausted cotton fields of
several of the Southern States, the rapidly
declining of yields of the great wheat fields
of the West, and the exhausted rye fields of
New England."
Do we hear his voice echoing in Pat
Lynch?
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