PLAN No. 1068. WHAT THE FARMER SHOULD KNOW.—TOPICS OF VOCATIONAL INSTRUCTION AND TRAINING FOR DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF FARMING

Farming is not a vocation. It is rather a thousand different vocations. No man can in the course of a lifetime engage in all of these different vocations, and no one farm is suitable for the development of every branch of farming.

For the individual farmer operating a given farm the vocational problem is partly one of individual preference on the part of the farmer, but it is largely one of developing to the best advantage the natural and acquired resources of the farm itself, which may be large or small, especially suitable for growing field crops or garden crops, for stock raising or dairying, for orcharding or small-fruit growing, or for some combination of these branches. On some farms the farmer will most profitably become in a greater or less degree a specialist—a corn or cotton planter, a dairyman, a stock breeder, a fruit grower, or a truck gardener. But in other cases his farm may be suitable for general farming. It may embrace a garden, an orchard, pasture land, and cultivated land suitable for field crops. Even in such cases the general farmer will, however, probably select certain specialties among those for which his farm is well adapted. The specialty farmer, on the other hand, will probably develop side lines not necessarily associated with his specialty, producing at least his own vegetables, fruit, poultry, eggs, milk, and butter for home consumption.

The general farmer must know how to care for his animals, how to prepare the soil for his crops, how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and rotate his crops. The specialty farmer must acquire a fund of technical knowledge pertaining to his specialty. For the fullest development of their farms, in accordance with their individual preferences, no two farmers perhaps will require precisely the same sort of training. There is a fund of information relating to breeds and types of animals, feeds, propagation, diseases, pedigrees, and other matters that is of special interest to the stock breeder and of comparatively little interest to the beekeeper. But nearly every farmer should know something of the care of animals, and many farmers who do not propose to become apiarists will wish to know enough of the care of bees to enable them to keep a few hives.

In the following chart the topics of instruction and training of special value in the different branches of agriculture are indicated. In proportion as a farmer engages in one or more of these branches, the training which will be of value to him will be determined by the requirements of the several branches in which he engages. In determining upon a specific course of training in individual cases, past training and experience, personal preferences, capacities and disabilities, and future prospects as regards character and location of farm to be operated and other conditions of future employment will naturally be taken into account.

CHART SHOWING SCOPE OF TRAINING FOR DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF AGRICULTURE

Chart Showing Disqualifying Disabilities for Specific Agricultural Occupations