Missouri Farm Management Association. 



281 



O. W. Bedford 



MY PLAN OF FARM MANAGEMENT. 



(W. O. Redford, Fayetteville, Mo.) 



I was invited by the program committee of this good farmers' 



meeting to tell you of my plan of farm 

 management or manner in which I have 

 handled my business to enable me to buy 

 and pay for about 1,200 acres of good 

 land. 



Before I proceed with my talk I 

 want to say that I have met with con- 

 ventions of bankers, druggists, teachers, 

 commercial clubs — and even Democrats; 

 but no class of men look as good to me 

 as the Missouri farmers who meet with 

 us here each year at Columbia. They 

 are enthusiastic, good-natured, well 

 clothed, and I was about to say well fed, 

 but from the way some of us have shed the hair from the tops of 

 our heads in midwinter, it would seem that we have not been 

 eating a balanced ration. You can readily see that I am not a 

 speaker and have no special aspirations in that direction. My 

 desire is to be a better business man, better farmer and better 

 citizen. My talk to you will be very informal and brief. I am 

 what one would call a diversified farmer. I never like to put all 

 my eggs in one basket. 



I will ask you, if you please, to make a mental picture plac- 

 ing me with my little family in about the center of a thousand- 

 acre farm, with the very best people in the world living all 

 around for neighbors. For convenience, we will make an out- 

 line and divide this farm into two parts. The first part, about 

 five hundred acres, is in permanent blue grass pastures of about 

 eighty acres each, fenced to turn any kind of stock. On all our 

 land we practice what I will call a stock rotation, which, by the 

 way, is just as important in stock farming as crop rotation is in 

 grain farming. In this stock rotation we handle mules, cattle, 

 hogs, sheep, horses, jacks and jennets and poultry. I place my 

 mules first because we have more money invested in these than 

 in any other branch of the business. Each year since I have 

 been farming I have bought a bunch of mule colts, and since 

 the first bunch was grown and ready to sell I have had a bunch 



