312 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



know too much; they will be better farmers for their knowledge of 

 books. And the wise farmer who has a son inclined to make larm- 

 ing a business cannot do better than to make that son such an otter 

 a& will decide him what is the best thing to do. That will solve 

 the problem for two men and their families at least. Let us hope 

 we have seen our worse times to secure competent help on the farm. 

 Not only is this true of the farm, out help within the houseuoid is 

 just as difficult to get help. In many cases the overworked wife 

 and daughters are compelled to assist with outside work in order 

 that the most imi>ortaut work may be accomplished. The Eui-o- 

 pean governments which are being drained of their young and best 

 workers to supply the demand of the labor markets in America are 

 beginning^to view with alarm the situation, and eiiorts will be 

 made to stay the tide of emigration by the improvement of home 

 conditions. 



These efforts, if they are made with any determination and con- 

 cert, must invariably complicate the labor problem in this country 

 and add to the trials of farmers, who in many sections, are facing 

 the help question with a good deal of discouragement, and will 

 make it more imperative for the farmers' sons to remain at home. 

 Some people think it better to have smaller farms. On the economic 

 side is to be credited the greater personal attention that can be 

 given to each acre, animal and process, and better work than can be 

 given on large estates through hired labor, less destruction of 

 tools, less waste and distance to work. A farm of one hundred 

 acres is 127 rods square, and one of three hundred acres is 220 rods 

 square. The average distance to the field work of one is 73 per cent., 

 or 23 rods less than to the other, and 2 per cent, so far as crop work 

 is involved. If one's normal working powers are used in travel on the 

 large farms it is not destructive, but would be important on 1,000 

 acres. Large farms invite genius, men of great organizing and 

 administrative powers, and make possible a high order of culture 

 and living. There is now no obstacle in the way of men of this 

 class applying their talents to land, nor no valid opposing reason. 

 Present conditions invite captains of industry to marshal their 

 forces over the gi'een fields and furrowed grounds. Machinery, the 

 genius of the times, compells or demands breadth of action for 

 economy of operation. The trouble of the small farm outside of 

 gardening and fruit growing is that the limit of its income is below 

 the demand of living in the Twentieth Century. I have a friend 

 15 miles from market growing staple crops only; he is one of the 

 best of farmers and his gross income is $75 to |80 per acre. His 

 profits per acre are large, yet though a man of moderate expenses, of 

 good habits, industrious, able, he has little or no income of family 

 expenses. He has ambition and capacity for larger operation. On 

 some farms 35 acres of actual tillage area will cover the amount 

 found on many farms of 100 to 150 acres, the remainder of the farm 

 returns but a mere nominal, almost negligible income, say -120 per 

 acre net; 35 acres is but |700. and can leave but little after taking 

 out the essentials for living in our times. One hundred acres at 

 the same rate would net |2,000. a respectable sum, even though the 

 profit per acre is reduced to .fl5, because of reduced eflficiency under 

 broad farming, and the result is but $1,500. There is something 



