Farming and Business. 31 
tage. All this is proved by the fact that very many 
of our best farmers are men who were not brought 
up on the farm, or who, at least, soon left it for 
other business. Good business men nearly always 
make a suecess of farming. They come into the 
business with trained minds, skilled judgment, and 
especially without too much stereotyped knowledge, 
and, therefore, without prejudice. They are willing 
-to learn, and they quickly assimilate new ideas. It 
sometimes seems as if the farmers of the future are 
to come largely from other occupations, where men 
are free from the bonds of tradition. 
In other words, there are two distinct lines of 
effort in farming: one is farming proper, or the 
growing of crops; and the other is business method, 
which is a matter of executive management. One 
difficulty with agriculture at the present time is the 
fact that every farmer is his own business manager, 
and it is probably true that less than one-fourth of 
the men, taking them as they run, are competent to 
manage a business. When the boys leave the farm 
for the city, they fall under the management of the 
proprietor of an industry or a business, and after a 
time all those individuals who show special aptitude 
for executive business rise to their opportunities, and 
themselves become managers and proprietors. In the 
increasing complication and complexities of the future, 
those farmers who are not good executive business 
men will be obliged to give their attention solely to 
those enterprises to which they are best adapted; so 
that there must gradually come to be a separation be- 
