CHAPTER II 

 FARMING AS A VOCATION 



Farming a good business. Since all lines of human 

 endeavor are open to free competition, people flock into 

 any vocation which temporarily seems especially profit- 

 able, and they as quickly leave a vocation which becomes 

 unprofitable, all industries thus being kept at nearly the 

 average in opportunity. The law of supply and demand, 

 in the main, controls. Farming is, on the whole, a con- 

 servative line of business, though often subject to severe 

 variations in the profit it affords. In farming, few men 

 become millionaires, and few paupers. It is not a line of 

 the greatest financial opportunities nor of the greatest 

 misfortunes. Its money rewards average less than those 

 of the average city vocations, but including with things 

 money will buy, those things money will not purchase, 

 or for which cash is not needed, farming furnishes as 

 much, or more, on the average, of remuneration as does 

 effort applied in the average of other vocations. In con- 

 ducting the family-sized farm, the minor portion of the 

 remuneration comes in the form of money, while good 

 food, clothing, a beautiful home, wholesome outdoor em- 

 ployment, independence, and other useful and enjoyable 

 features of rural life constitute the larger portion. 



State benefited by a strong race of farmers. The 

 changed conditions of modern times require a smaller 

 proportion of the whole people on the farms than for- 

 merly; only about one-third of all engaged in gainful 

 operations in the United States are now tillers of the 

 soil, and the indications are that this will be further 

 reduced to one-fourth of the whole, when the ratio must 

 become nearly static. Labor-saving machinery makes 



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