8 FARM MANAGEMENT 



eggs are cleaned for market, and butter is sometimes made. 

 In many cases the women help with the milking, take 

 care of hens, work in the garden, and do other kinds of 

 outside work. A limited amount of such outdoor work is 

 a good thing for health and happiness. When the farmer 

 is away, his wife usually takes the responsibility of seeing 

 that things go well. 



For these reasons, a single man or woman finds it 

 difficult to manage a farm successfully. One may suc- 

 ceed in a city whether he has a family or not, but on a farm 

 the chances are much better for married persons. 



The young farmer usually hires out until he marries. 

 This usually marks his start as a tenant, or, if he has the 

 capital, his start as an owner. For success in farming, 

 health, strength, and ability for the wife are almost as 

 important as for the farmer. 



On 947 farms in New York it was found that only 4 per 

 cent of the families consisted of one person. 1 Many of 

 these were widows and widowers who had not yet disposed 

 of the farm. Very few men continue in farming unless 

 they have wives or daughters, and very few women 

 continue in the occupation unless they have husbands 

 or sons. Farming is distinctly dependent on the home. 



There are some cases where the farm is independent of 

 the house. The hired men board themselves or live in 

 boarding houses. If cows are kept, the dairy work is 

 done in a dairy house. Some of these are successful farms, 

 but most of them are owned by men who have the money 

 and are willing to run a farm at a loss. For every such 

 enterprise, there are probably a hundred where the farmer 

 and his family are partners in the farm business. 



One great advantage of farming as compared with city 



1 New York, Cornell Bulletin 295, p. 555. 



