American Agriculturist, February 3,1923 
What We Think of Corporation Farming 
The Pasture Over the Fence Has Weeds, As Well as Our Own 
F rom observation of corporation farm¬ 
ing, individual farming on a large scale, 
and experience gained in operation of a 
large farm it is my opinion that Mr. Mosher’s 
plan allows for considerable criticism. 
I will take Mr. Mosher’s figures—5,000 
acres capitalized at $500,000—although I be¬ 
lieve the same trouble would be encountered 
on corporations much smaller. 
First, the capitilization is much too high 
for the investor to ever see profit from the 
sale of farm produce. At 6 per cent the pro¬ 
posed rate of return to investors a profit of 
$30,000, would have to be earned. The in¬ 
terest from the Governmeht bonds would not 
pay the taxes and depreciation on the tools 
and buildings for such a large proposition. 
The minute that one changes 
from direct farm owner manage- - 
ment to a plan of management 
where it is necessary to hire a 
manager to direct work or even to 
someone who is a joint owner, 
trouble commences and financial 
returns dwindle. The new mana¬ 
ger of the corporation will go 
at his problems to the best of his 
ability to show the company offi¬ 
cers that he is worthy of his po¬ 
sition. But in a corporation 
where there is cash available the 
tendency is to pay a little higher 
price for labor and the manager 
will want first-class tools and 
equipment, not being wUling to 
get along with old equipment as 
many individual farmers are 
forced to do. 
Present day prices on machines 
and trucks run into large figures, 
and it is very easy when you have 
^ available cash to buy some high- 
‘ priced machine that will not be 
worth its cost price to the busi¬ 
ness. The theory is that the 
equipment for the ten farms run 
under one management would be 
less than if run under ten dif¬ 
ferent heads, but this does not 
prove out in practice. 
The tendency is for the officers 
of the corporation to take the 
By OUR READERS 
bosses for the several farms and differ¬ 
ent departments. They market a high-class 
product, but I have been told and have 
good reason to believe that in approxi¬ 
mately twenty years they have failed each 
year to come within $20,000 of paying ex¬ 
penses. This I would consider is a well es¬ 
tablished business and ably managed but 
it shows the futility of large corporation 
farming. 
I also know of a large farm, 600 acres, 
with a manager and department heads for 
the different products which has shown a 
very large yearly loss and I doubt their 
ability to ever show a profit by the sale of 
Memories of the Farm 
ES, Johnnie and Susie may complain now. They may have the 
same natural dislike for the tasks of the old farm that they have 
for castor oil, but the habit of industry will get its arms about them 
after a time. In time, tasks will become a joy instead of being a bur¬ 
den—that is, if administered judiciously, like the aforesaid cantor oil; 
for overwork and underplay for the growing child is abominable. 
Think of the crop of fragrant memories that become a lifetime 
heritage to the child brought up on a farm. On a stony hilltop, an 
old New England farm, I spent my youthful days. The flavor of 
wintergreen and sassafras and birch and slippery elm lingers in my 
mouth to-day, three thousand miles away from the scenes of my boy¬ 
hood days. Again I sit in the old schoolhouse and look out of the 
window at the fields of ripening grain that “crinkle like a lake” in 
the soft summer breezes—a wonderful picture that has hung on the 
walls of memory for five decades! 
Not the least of farm memories is the recollection of the spring by 
the wayside, where the thirsty farm folk who passed by, paused to 
quench their thirst. Even in a drouth, when other springs failed, the 
flow of this spring seemed unquenchable in its delicious coolness and 
purity. How sweet was the draught that we drank from the coconut 
shell that always companied with the spring—the temperate and the 
tropic zone combined to give their exquisite flavoring to the old spring. 
The wealth of clover blossoms and the busy bees, the odor of the 
new-mown hay, how the memories of them flow.back to me like in¬ 
cense from the old farm days. The memories of yellow jacket and 
bumblebee are more pointed and painful, but the pain of a sting is 
soon forgotten while the delightful memories will abide forever. 
The haymow where my sister and myself wrestled, or turned somer¬ 
saults from the great hand-hewed beams into the fragrant hay—how 
vivid these memories. 
There are no columns of steel, no mountains of cement, no huge 
sky scrapers that rise, like some modern Tower of Babel, to deny us 
even a glimpse of nature in her grace and purity. Fortunate the 
children who have the privileges and joys of the farm bound in their 
bundle of life—will it not prove a lifetime heritage?—G. W. Tuttle. 
according to his ability. If a man proves his 
worth he is given a good salary. If another 
is not worth so much he is paid less. This 
would cause jealousies in such a corporation 
as Mr. Mosher suggests. Then in the mat¬ 
ter of work, if I understand his plan, there 
would be some persons who would stand 
back expecting to reap the benefits of the 
other fellow’s work. 
If a person is placed in a position that he 
will reap the entire benefits of his labor, it 
is an incentive to do his best. There are 
some persons who seem to be afraid to help 
along a worthy enterprise that would benefit 
themselves because they fear that others will 
reap a part of the reward of their labor. 
There are others who watch for every op¬ 
portunity to do the other fellow 
and they usually find such op¬ 
portunities in corporations. 
Such selfishness and designing 
has wrecked many a worthy en¬ 
terprise and I think the corpora¬ 
tion suggested would prove a 
means of furnishing such oppor¬ 
tunities and for this reason would 
fail.—A. J. Legg, West Virginia. 
All is Not Gold tha<^ Glitters 
I 
work a little easier than if they were work¬ 
ing as individuals. There is more time to 
talk over problems and less action taken. 
If anything goes wrong, they, using a slang 
expression, simply “pass the buck.” 
Present day farming is conducted on a 
very close margin. It is usually impossible 
for farm managers and overseers to actually 
earn their wages. In other words farming 
does not warrant paying high wages and the 
placing of high overhead expense. 
Mr. Mosher’s plan for concentrating his 
help on a rainy day or for the harvest of cer¬ 
tain crops such as wheat or hay has some 
drawbacks. It would not be advisable to 
hire all general utility men as the cost would 
be prohibitive. For instance one might hire 
a good chicken man that would not be of 
much value in the harvest field, packing 
apples, taking care of the dairy or vice versa. 
It would be necessary to keep some of the 
men on the road trucking or hauling almost 
continually on such a large place and I be¬ 
lieve from experience that the manager 
would encounter some difficulty getting those 
men to thrash grain or clean out chicken 
houses. It would not be a wise policy for a 
manager to try and do this, although I agree 
that a certain number of general utility men 
could be jumped from one job to another to 
very good advantage. 
I know of one corporation which owns 
ab<^iat^^^grms averaging 100 to 150 acres 
,,are managed by one man with 
farm products under their present scheme 
of management. 
The bosses and general utility labor hired 
by a large corporation on the average are 
looking for a soft snap and‘will be able to 
get away with it much easier than when em¬ 
ployed by an individual farmer. The bosses 
will work in their friends and petty politics 
will be played all along the line. 
Crops and farm products are too uncer¬ 
tain in yield and price to run a farm on a 
business basis similar to other lines of busi¬ 
ness. This together with the necessary high 
overhead are the two main reasons why a 
large farm corporation will not succeed.— 
Harold R. Hitchings, Onondaga, County, 
N. Y. 
READ with keen interest your 
splendid editorial of Decem¬ 
ber 23, “Wrong Cannot Cor¬ 
rect Wrong” and rejoice to know 
how many farmers will read it. 
In the last ten days or two 
weeks I have of course had many 
callers at my office in the bank, 
and I am going to tell you of three 
of them, all men, and big men in 
their different vocations. The 
first was a wealthy merchant, a 
man I have known for some years. 
He looked pale, and careworn and 
tired, and he told me he had wor¬ 
ried much about his business of 
late. I shall never be worth what 
this man is so far as money goes. 
He is younger than I am and yet 
his hair is getting white. I 
wouldn’t change places with him, 
and yet when I was a farmer I 
Corporation Farming Has Too 
Many “Ifsi” 
A 
CAREFUL reading of R. E. Mosher’s 
plan for corporation farming looks all 
right in theory and probably would be 
all right if the corporation consisted of 
stockholders, all of whom were persons of 
business ability and all could lay aside all 
selfishness and would all work for the suc¬ 
cess of the enterprise. However, in practice 
such a company would be hard to organize 
without getting in some persons who would 
seek every opportunity to get the advantage 
of the others. A successful corporation pays 
everyone who a compensation 
used to think how easily he has acquired his 
wealth and become head of a big business. 
Another was an engineer on a local rail¬ 
road. He has reached the stage where he 
has the largest passenger engine on the road. 
He has a night run and a very fast one, but 
he too looked tired, and a bit careworn. He 
had a long deep scar on his cheek and neck, 
and he walked with a decided hitch in his 
gait. I knew this was because some years 
ago he was in a wreck, and had a miraculous 
escape. As he sat by my desk he told me 
that two nights before when he stepped off 
of his engine at the end of his fast run, with 
a train of ten cars, several of which were 
filled with sleeping passengers, he felt so 
nervous and tired that he had asked for a 
little vacation of a week or ten days. He is 
getting big pay. 
The third man I have in mind was a 
farmer. He was weather beaten, hale and 
hearty, but his hard work for the last two 
years had brought him but little, too little, 
for all the work he had done. He was some¬ 
what discouraged, but he said “If I can get 
through another year, I am in hopes I may 
make good yet, for I hate to move to town 
with my family, even if I can get more pay.” 
I sincerely hope that he and thousands of 
other good farmers will continue to think 
this way, for if they don’t, conditions are 
bound to be serious in this agricultural coun¬ 
try of ours. 
(Continued on page 93) 
