The Rural Voice, 1980-09, Page 24FARMING IN THE PAST
Is bigger always better?
BY ADRIAN VOS
It has never been easy to determine how large a farm should
be to fit the capabilities of the operator. One hundred years ago
John Read, a farmer/author, wrestled with it, and 50 years ago,
Louis Bromfield, another noted American writer/farmer and
representative for his government abroad, also had trouble with
it.
Bromfield said that the desire to become bigger is part of our
Western ambition. But he warned that a farmer and his wife,
who can comfortably run a certain size farm, often buy more land
to double their holdings, in the belief that their income also will
double. What often happens, he warned, is that the machinery is
not large enough and the farmer and his wife work themselves
into an early grave trying to do the impossible. They may well be
able to work all the land, but the yield per acre suffers because
not as much effort per acre can be put in.
Read said: "In order to buy a farm safely and manage it
successfully, a man might to have some money at his command.
That some men who have bought farms almost wholly on credit,
then were trusted for the stock and tools which they needed
have eventually succeeded in paying off their debts, and thus
becoming the owners of the property which they had nominally
held, is true, but they are exceptional cases, and should not be
taken as examples."
That is a far cry from what is happening today where almost all
farms are bought with borrowed money.
Read went on: "In many instances (at the time of old age) men
have made many improvements on the land, but by reason of ill
health or Toss of crops are unable to keep up the interest, and the
mortgages are foreclosed, leaving the farmer and his family
without a home. It is much pleasanter to own a farm than it is to
work for another man, but it is not as safe a thing for a man to do.
On this account we would not advise the buying of a farm without
considerable ready money."
MORE IN TROUBLE
Now that farmers in general don't adhere to Read's
philosophy any more, we also see them in more trouble when
adversity strikes, just as he wrote 100 years ago.
It is not that Read didn't recognize the advantages of large
production units in relation to the cost of equipment. He noted
that it costs as much to take 100 pounds of butter to the market as
it does to take ten pounds, but then he had no experience with
pick-up by cooperatives. He remarked also that the cost of tools
and equipment is much higher per acre for the small farm than it
is for the large one. But he also was not acquainted with custom
work, where one combine can do the work for a number of farms.
SMALL FARMS
Read writes: "It is eminently safe for a farmer never to buy
land which he doesn't need and which he cannot make
immediately available. There are certain advantages in having
small farms. They require less capital, less hired help, Tess
teams and tools, and there is less care and anxiety about their
management than there is in the case of large ones. Many a man
can buy a small farm, cultivate it well, himself and his family
doing all the work, and obtain crops enough to make him
comfortable. If he gets the idea, as many men do, that he must
get rich, and that in order to secure this end he must have a great
deal more land, the chances are that this pernicious idea will run
away with him, and that his days of happiness are past.
"In the great majority of cases the owners of medium sized
farms can do a great deal better by improving their methods of
culture, and choosing more profitable crops, than they can by
enlarging the area under cultivation.
Read said: "If farmers were in the habit of following the
principle embodied in the old tailor's plan of cutting a coat
according to the supply of cloth, there would be no necessity for a
consideration of this subject."
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PG. 22 THE RURAL VOICE/SEPTEMBER 1980