Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 83 



And so, since all the world is dependent upon a successful and 

 self-sustaining agriculture — which it does not often stop to 

 appreciate any more than does the average farmer feel the 

 necessity for saving and feeding his soil — yet the business men, 

 and the many more we wish to loan us money on farm mortgages, 

 can't and won't do it until we farmers get down to business 

 methods. 



Farming has been said to be one-eighth science, three- 

 eighths art and one-half business. The business man in financial 

 circles is anxious to do business, to loan money, but he wants to 

 know exactly what he is doing and what his security is. When 

 the farmer becomes a business man, as he must, he will manage 

 his farm on business lines with plan and precision. He will 

 know what he is doing and why he is doing it; he will be able to 

 show that his farm is making a clear, clean, net profit each year 

 and that his sole asset, his soil, is being protected, and that its 

 fertility is being built up. Then the farmer, as a business man, 

 can go to the financial business man and get any financial accom- 

 modations that he could ask. Not alone that, but the financial 

 man would be delighted to loan on such farm security, for it is 

 absolutely the best and safest of all. 



We must have business methods — permanent and purpose- 

 ful methods — on the farm, not alone to hold our own, but to get 

 financial help. This being understood, and being a condition 

 precedent, how is farm financing of the future to be conducted 

 for the farmer's best interest when his methods and soil fertility 

 are assured? We may learn much from Europe in farm methods 

 and farm finance, for dire necessity has compelled them to have 

 better methods, as it will compel us if we are not smart and sane 

 enough to anticipate the results of present methods. They have 

 better farm financing methods, not because they have better 

 soil or brains, for they haven't, but they have better methods, 

 and for that reason, and that alone, their soil, farmed for hun- 

 dreds of years, gives twice the yield ours does. 



They, however, make prompt and continuous returns to the 

 soil, for fertility, or soil reserve, must be built up while the farm 

 income will carry it, otherwise it becomes a dead load for a few 

 years. 



We know enough of good farming now to double our yields 

 and treble our income if we would but put it in practice. 



One of Europe's oldest and earliest methods of farm financing 

 was on the co-operative basis, an organization of the farmers in 



