METHODS OF STUDYING AGRICULTURAL QUESTIONS 407 



Possessing this qualification, the student should devote most 

 of his time to gathering data which may form the basis of 

 generalizations regarding the character and operation of eco- 

 nomic forces. 



There are many ways of securing information on which to 

 base judgments on economic questions relating to farming. 

 The farmer learns from his own experience. He observes the 

 activities of others. He talks with his neighbors about which 

 crops pay best, which methods of disposing of crops pay best, 

 the proper wages for hired help, methods of renting land, and 

 every other question which may arise from time to time. This 

 accumulated knowledge is of very great importance to any 

 farmer coming into the neighborhood to take up farming. 



In recent years personal and neighborhood experience has 

 been made more available than formerly by means of the farm 

 survey method of studying local farm management problems. 

 The farm survey has stimulated farm bookkeeping, which has in 

 some instances developed into a detailed set of records com- 

 plete enough for cost-accounting purposes. These methods of 

 studying the individual farm and the farming of a region give 

 valuable information regarding what is being done, the ways 

 in which things are being done, and the financial results which 

 are being secured. The important questions which are left 

 unanswered by these methods of study are : Why is the present 

 system profitable or unprofitable and what are the reasons for 

 believing that some other type of farming may or may not be 

 more profitable ? To secure a basis for passing judgment upon 

 questions of this character it is necessary to have in mind the 

 conditions of agriculture and the demands for agricultural 

 products in the entire competing territory of which the local 

 region is a part. In order to secure this broad grasp of the 

 economic forces which determine what pays best on the in- 

 dividual farm and for the nation as a whole, it is desirable to 

 make an historical and geographical study of the economic 

 forces which have been and which are in operation throughout 

 the competing territory. After all other methods have been 

 exhausted the experimental method may have to be resorted 



