2 FARM MANAGEMENT 



buys most of his necessities. Not only must he have 

 money to buy the innumerable necessary things for his 

 living and equipment, but land, which was once to be had 

 for the asking, is now dear. All these changes mean 

 that the farmer has become a business man. He produces 

 and sells and buys. These changes demand the applica- 

 tion of business principles in farming. So long as the 

 family lived directly from the farm, there was very little 

 need for such principles. 



The kind of business ability needed is not so much that 

 of the trader as of the executive who can organize a farm 

 into a successful business enterprise. The idle horse in 

 the barn is a more frequent source of loss than is the bad 

 bargain in buying a horse. 



More farmers fail because of poor farm management 

 than because of poor production. This is to be expected, 

 since the principles of crop growth are much the same as 

 they always were, while the proper organization of the 

 farm changes with every new invention. More farmers 

 fail because the size of farm or kind of farming does not 

 keep men, horses, and machinery properly employed 

 than fail because of poor crops. 



The successful farmer must plan his work ahead of 

 time. It is not enough that he have a plan for field work. 

 He should always have a plan of what to do if it storms. 

 He must foresee most things that are about to go wrong 

 and prevent them from going wrong. 



2. The farmer as a mechanic. Mechanical ability 

 has always been desirable for a farmer, but in the last 

 twenty years the great increase in the number of com- 

 plicated machines has made this ability of much more 

 importance than formerly. Grain and corn binders, 

 manure spreaders, potato diggers, gasoline engines, and. 



