REPORT OF DIRECTOR OF STATES RELATIONS SERVICE. 325 



FARM MANAGEMENT DEMONSTRATIONS. 



This work initiated in 1914 for the purpose of teaching the farmer 

 better organization, administration, and business methods, continued 

 under the leadership of L. H. Goddard and has grown steadily in 

 favor with farmers, county agents, and extension directors. The 

 work emphasizes the need in each community of — 



(1) A farm business large enough to make possible a fair labor 

 income. 



(2) Crop yields as good or better than the average of the com- 

 munity. 



(3) Stock which gives returns equal or better than the average of 

 the community. 



(4) A farm so organized that it will permit of the maximum use 

 during the year of the work, stock, equipment, and labor on the farm. 



These matters are brought home to the farmers through the analy- 

 ses of the business of groups of farms of about 70 in each group, in 

 which each farmer is shown how to analyze his business with refer- 

 ence to the important factors affecting his labor income and then 

 given opportunity to compare each of these factors on his own farm 

 with the same factors on other like farms in the community as well 

 as with the averages of all farms in the community. 



Progress and Results. 



Farm management demonstration work was taken up by five States 

 in cooperation with the Federal Government in September, 1914, the 

 training of men for the duties of State farm management demon- 

 strator beginning the preceding July. At the close of the fiscal year 

 ending June 30, 1916, work was under way in 26 of the 33 Northern 

 and Western States. In 181 areas, 17,985 farm records had been 

 taken, 1,104 meetings held, and 11,481 records returned to the farm- 

 ers for their consideration. Two thousand and ninety-three farmers 

 are avowedly arranging for readjustments in their farm business 

 as a result of this work and many others will doubtless make such 

 changes. Six thousand two hundred and forty-seven farmers are 

 studying their business more carefully through daily records of 

 receipts and expenses and 3,401 of them have been reached in follow- 

 up work. 



The farm management demonstration work in the different areas 

 from Maine to Oregon seem to indicate that each agricultural com- 

 munity where the demonstrations have been made contain approxi- 

 mately 20 per cent of farmers who are making good labor incomes, 

 well above the average of the community, while about 40 per cent 

 are making labor incomes much below the average. The farms of 

 the 20 per cent of better farmers in the community through the 

 analysis of the farm management demonstrator and his tact in 

 calling attention to the factors of success on those farms often serve 

 as a most helpful guide in pointing the way to successful agriculture 

 for the farmers in the community who are not getting along so well. 



Farmers who in some cases question the advisability of demon- 

 strations for the purpose of increasing crop yields approve of this 

 farm management demonstration work at once for the reason that 

 its success is measured in terms of dollars per farm instead of yields 



