TENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX 515 



to attempt to co-ordinate all the manifold interests of the farm into a 

 single comprehensive farm plan, and yet this is exactly what the farmer 

 must do every day of his life if he would get the most out of his farm and 

 make farming pay. 



The farmer is not simply a corn farmer, or a wheat grower, or a cattle 

 breeder, or a sheep feeder, or a poultry raiser, but often all of these and 

 more combined. His farm, therefore, must be planned with reference to 

 all of these operations and the harmonious dove-tailing together of the 

 different parts. In replanning his farm for profit the farmer must see 

 all these different problems in a comprehensive way at the outset, omit 

 the features that do not pay, and strengthen those that do. 



Fortunately, many of our agricultural colleges today are co-ordinating 

 the work of their different departments and giving courses in farm man- 

 agement, and usually suggestions can be obtained from these sources rela- 

 tive to the general management of the farm — not necessarily detailed di- 

 rections for farming, for it would be as diflScult to tell a man how to farm 

 as it is to tell him how to succeed in law, but rather to furnish him a 

 comprehensive plan for managing his farm, corresponding in a way to the 

 plan furnished by the architect to a builder. 



FARM PLANS MUST BE BASED OX A\'1;RAGE CONDITIONS. 



It is often said that a farm can not be planned as other kinds of busi- 

 ness are; that the vicissitudes of weather, the visitations of insect pests 

 or plant diseases, the low prices that may prevail when the farmer has 

 to sell, and other unforeseen circumstances may interefere to make all 

 farm plans almost worthless from a practical standpoint. 



This is often quite true with reference to plans made for a particular 

 year. But when the plans are based on average conditions for a long 

 series of years, then the objections do not hold. For while we can not 

 tell what may happen during any particular season, we can foretell with 

 considerable accuracy what the average conditions will be over a series, 

 say, of ten years. The whole business of insurance is based on the re- 

 liability of averages. It can not be foretold just who out of a thousand 

 persons will die next year, but it can be stated with much certainty about 

 how many persons out of the thousand will die. Plans for the farm, like- 

 wise, must represent and be based on average conditions and not on single 

 years. The farm plan must be made for a period of years and not for a 

 single year. 



HOW FARMS ARE EEPLANNED BY THE OFFICE OF FARM MANAGEMENT. 



The United States Department of Agriculture is in almost daily receipt 

 of letters to the following effect: The writer owns a farm. The farms is 

 not paying. Can the Department suggest a kind of farming that will pay? 



This correspondence is usually referred to the OflBce of Farm Manage- 

 ment of the Bureau of Plant Industry for reply. It is to show how the 

 OflBce of Farm Management handles such problems as these, and thus to 

 indicate to the farmer the capabilities of a farm when replanned for profit 

 and how he may go about replanning his own farm, that this bulletin is 

 written. 



