XVI 



FARM FINANCE 



THE farmer must not only be a scientific man and 

 a skilled artisan, but he must also have some fun- 

 damental notions, and sound ones at that, concerning 

 finance. It is extremely easy for the farmer to go 

 into debt, especially if his farm is not mortgaged. The 

 country store or the village merchant will give a farmer 

 unlimited credit as long as his farm is unencumbered. 

 But this question is a pertinent one, namely, Should 

 the farmer go into debt ? 



This can be properly answered both affirmatively 

 and negatively. The farmer is justified in going into 

 debt when by so doing he can secure the necessary funds 

 either for the payment for his farm or its equipment. 

 A reasonable indebtedness, at a low rate of interest, is 

 justifiable for expenditures of this kind. On the other 

 hand, a farmer cannot go into debt with safety for the 

 expenses of fine clothing, riding horses, carriages, auto- 

 mobiles, flying machines, and the unknown and untried 

 schemes of every description with which he is beset. 



I go even so far as to say that it is not justifiable for 

 a farmer to go into debt for a melodeon or a piano or a 

 pianola, and certainly not for unknown and unproved 

 pieces of farm machinery, nor for books that are sold 

 by instalment, nor for new kinds of lightning rods, nor 



for any kind of a bunco proposition of any description. 



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