A LIVING FROM THE LAND 



means doing the things that need to be done 

 at the right time. 



If the farm is large there is a necessity for 

 employing hired labor, and the costs of this 

 labor, especially under inexperienced manage- 

 ment, are likely to be out of line with the value 

 of the products raised. In many instances the 

 lack of technical experience can be corrected by 

 dependence upon governmental agencies, such as 

 experiment stations, county agricultural agents 

 and departments of agriculture. These services 

 are available to every farmer, in most cases 

 without cost, and all that he needs is the will 

 to avail himself of such expert help. In the cases 

 of farms that have been abandoned, we find 

 that the operators did not make contacts with 

 dependable sources of information, an indication 

 of the necessity of cooperating with the agri- 

 cultural agencies or with experienced and suc- 

 cessful neighboring farmers. 



Still another cause of failure lies in the 

 purchase of a farm at a price which requires 

 the assumption of a mortgage which is too high 

 in relation to the income from the farm. In 

 short, an attempt to operate on an overcapi- 

 talized basis will, sooner or later, lead to disaster. 

 Failure to locate on a productive type of soil 

 may easily lead to loss of the investment. If the 



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