Farm Management as a Profession 



Two decades ago positions as farm managers were 

 scarce. Only a few rich men owned and operated farms. 

 In the West all the farm managers worth the name could 

 be told off on the fingers and toes of one man. Practically 

 all of them were old countrymen, imported by reason of 

 their knowledge of stock, or engaged in managerial po- 

 sitions after an unsuccessful attempt to manage farms 

 and herds of their own. Some of these old wheel horses 

 are with us yet — men now the deans of their profession, 

 looked up to and honored for the good they have done 

 and are still doing. Some have made a competence and 

 are living a life of well earned ease, while others have 

 passed to the great limbo of time, unwept, unhonored 

 and unsung. 



Twenty or twenty-five years ago the agricultural col- 

 leges were just beginning to be heard of, Henry of Wis- 

 consin and other bright lights in the educational con- 

 stellation just beginning to make their light shine before 

 men, writes J. M. S. Johnstone in The Field. 



Since that time expansion has been the order every- 

 where in agriculture. Numbers of students in classes 

 have each succeeding }ear exceeded those of the season 

 before. And yet of later seasons each successive crop 

 of graduates has been swallowed up and borne away in 

 the swift current of employment, some into educational 

 work, some into managerial positions. All are needed 

 annually, even those of mediocre attainments finding 

 places for the exercise of such talents as they possess. 

 A mightv revolution to be eft'ected in so short a time, 

 but merelv a harbinger of better and greater things to 

 come, a more bounteous harvest to be reaped by all young 

 men of ability, stability, common sense and a natural love 

 for soil, stock and crop. 



As wide as the country itself is the opportunity. We 

 are told on every hand that the learned professions are 

 filled to overflowing — that 60 per cent, of the men who 

 take their M. D. degrees never practice as physicians or 

 surgeons, and that not ten per cent, of the remainder 

 ever achieve prominence at all in their calling. We hear 

 that the ranks of the legal fraternitv are so badly over- 

 flowed that there is no hope for even one youngster in 

 twenty-five ever to make a living at the bar. We read in 

 scarelieads in daily papers that the average wage of 

 country ministers of the gospel is less than $650 per 

 annum. Even the Fourth Estate has openings only for 

 voungsters with peculiar gifts. Trade, we are told, has 

 become so narrowed down in constricted channels that 

 opportunities for rapid advancement to anything better 

 than a mere existence are slim indeed. We read all this 

 daily, and as the Scotch proverb has it. "there's aye wa- 

 ter whaur the calf was (Irowned." 



Look on that picture. Then turn to the limitless op- 

 portunity afforded by American agriculture. Surelv it is 

 an anomalous situation which calls for a continued dis- 

 cussion of the time-worn subject — "How to Keep the Boy 

 on the Farm." That discussion incidentally is headed 

 wrong. It should be "How to Make the Farm Keep the 

 Boy on It." Agricultural education will do it. There is 

 no dependence to l)e placed on any of the trite formulae 

 so often exploited. To make a success as a farmer, 

 either as owner or manager, the boy must be the arbiter 

 of his own destiny. Love for the great outdoors is a re- 

 ligion by itself, and like true religion must be peculiar to 

 the soul within which it springs eternal. Let the boy 

 who craves the eight-hour day, the lights and liberties of 

 the walled city go his way in peace. When he has lost, 

 if lose he must, and has filled his belly with the husks 

 the swine did eat. let him creep back repentant and 



chastened to the great bosom of ]\Iother Nature, and 

 make a place for him in the outer court. 



To whom shall greater honor among men be given 

 than to the managers, factors and agents in Great Britain, 

 who have, sometimes from generation to generation, 

 taken their places among the foremost agricultural im- 

 provers of their time ? Who shall be ranked in the scale 

 of utility to mankind higher tlian the farm manager who 

 moulds animal form in its highest and best estate? Shall 

 the lawyer at the bar, the judge on the bench, the one 

 pleading and the other deciding great issues, be called 

 superior to the man who breeds cattle, horses or other 

 farm animals. Shall the surgeon who, with venturesome 

 genius and steady hand, has just saved a human life, be 

 called superior to the manager who by diligent effort, 

 gives to the world an improved breed of wheat or corn? 



Never. Ships will ride the seas ; locomotives will 

 traverse their iron highways and commerce and the ways 

 of men in their churches, law courts and market places 

 will change but little in the years to come. To the farmer 

 alone is the future of the race entrusted. On him is im- 

 posed the burden of mankind's advancement. 



How then can a young man do better than by conse- 

 crating his energies to the great cause of agriculture? 

 Granted that the ways are narrowed with advancing civ- 

 ilization to success in the time-honored professions, it 

 follows that with the ever-increasing multitudes of our 

 population the demand for brains in agriculture must in- 

 crease unceasingly. 



In one direction the day of small things in agriculture 

 is passing. In another it is but dawning. Great, yes, 

 well nigh inconceivable enterprises are in contemplation 

 — the draining of the Everglades, the drying and tiling 

 of the great corn belt swamps, the imprisonment of 

 mighty rivers, the transmutation of pine slashings and 

 barrens into lush pasture .lands — all these and many more 

 great agricultural transformations are in the formative 

 or active stages, all with the object of increasing the 

 area of productive ground. 



Wherever there is money to be made there will be 

 found ready and willing the men to make it. Granted a 

 supply of men capable of grappling with the problems 

 involved in these and many other sections of the country 

 and places will be opened in agricultural work for thou- 

 sands of capable young men. Unlike the other profes- 

 sions, agriculture can never become filled up, clogged by 

 superflmty of talent. Its needs are in the inverse ratio 

 to those of all other. professions and walks in life. L'n- 

 derlying the future prosperity of this great and expand- 

 ing nation is the farm, and the profit on the farm, and. 

 .\tlaslike, the men, who, in their work of improvement, 

 make possible or increase that profit, bear aloft the whole 

 "reat national structure. 



The Service Bureau of the National 

 Association of Gardeners 



Is maintained for the purpose of providing oppor- 

 tunities for eflicient and ambitious men engaged in the 

 profession of gardening. 



This department of the Association is at the disposal 

 of those who may require the services of capable su- 

 perintendents, gardeners or assistant gardeners. 

 Address 



M. C. EBEL, Sec'y, 



National .Association of Gardeners, 



Madison, N. J. 



