64 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



FARM MANAGEMENT. 



UY HON. N. P. HULL, STATE DAHiY AND I'OOD COMMISSIONER, DIMON- 



DALE, MICH, 



First, I want to take joii into my confidence by telling you 

 that I did not come to Massachusetts to tell you all about the 

 details of running your farm, for I know, as well as you, that 

 the only way I could successfully handle the details of a farm 

 in Massachusetts would be to leave my farm in Michigan, 

 move here, settle upon this land, and study conditions of soil, 

 market and climate for a few years ; then I might be able to 

 understand fairly well the details of farm management in 

 Massachusetts ; but I maintain that there are certain basic 

 princii)les of farm management that are just as true here in 

 Massachusetts as they are in Michigan. 



Let me here give an illustration of farm management. 

 Upon one side of the road there is a man who does a fairly 

 good day's work, day in and day out for a year. At the end 

 of the year he has made a profit; he has something to show 

 for his labor; he has been able to surround himself and his 

 family with the comforts of life, educate his children and lay 

 aside something for the day of sickness, calamity and death. 

 Beside him, or perhaps across the road, there is another man, 

 who works harder than the first-mentioned man ; his wife 

 works harder than any one ought to have to work, and his 

 children work hard, but at the end of the year he is no better 

 off than at the beginning. After a decade has gone by this 

 man has nothing to show for his labor except the bare fact of 

 having existed. The one man has managed his farm, his busi- 

 ness, correctly ; the other man has not. The result is one man 

 succeeded ; the other did not. 



Let me here ask yon a question. LTow many of you who 

 have been farming for ten years can tell which crop grown 



