Funds for Development Available
Farms have been likened to huge sponges from their ability to absorb money and labor, but the capable manager can make investment of money and labor in farming profitable. Uncle Sam, it may be noted, has arranged for the advance of money through the Federal Loan service, and local banks stand ready now as never before to accommodate the farmer temporarily with the necessary funds for development operations. Many farms, like some manufacturing plants, are being run to only half capacity or less by a “one-horse tenant,” caretaker, or discouraged farmer. They are awaiting men and money, ready to absorb both, and if they are reorganized and managed on a business basis they will become highly profitable.
The Need for Managers
Only 60,000 farms out of 6,361,000 employed managers and superintendents according to the 1910 census. But it is practically certain that more than one farm in a hundred would have been operated by managers had there been a larger number of effectively trained men available to men owning, or in position to own, farms large enough to justify the employment of a manager. With the number of improved farms increased to probably 7,000,000 by this date, the demand is greater for this class of trained men. The department of Agriculture and the State agricultural colleges report inability to fill numerous calls for farm managers and superintendents, and the advertisements in the agricultural and live-stock papers for them indicate that the demand continues. The small percentage of profits from the inefficient management of idle and incompetent tenants makes tens of thousands of farm owners not living on their places very desirous of securing active farm managers, capable of introducing scientific methods.
We believe, in fact, we know, that there are in the country numerous “old time” farm owners who are barely making a living, while their farms are constantly depreciating in value. Unquestionably such owners would receive better returns by employing farm managers. The combination of a number of farms with co-operative handling, under a competent farm manager, on the community principle, would reduce expenses for machinery, teams, and power, and make possible more economic employment of labor. The existence of such conditions offers an excellent field of activity to the man who is trained well enough to see and to use these opportunities. Knowing the possibilities such a man might be able to so thoroughly convince the owners of a number of inefficiently operated farms of the advantage of having them worked as a unit and thereby get them to adopt his plans. The country is full of landed estates of sufficient area to justify the owners in employing specially trained men. Syndicates and individuals have been for years buying groups of neglected farms and orchards in the southern States. These are almost invariably being handled by scientifically trained farm managers. The properties have improved under modern methods of culture and have in most cases shown profits within two or three years, notwithstanding the necessary outlay to bring the run-down property into productive condition. Similar conditions obtain in New York and other northern and western States.
Responsibility of The Manager
Managers are responsible for success in farming. Upon their experience and ability depends the securing of the “greatest continuous profit,” and, in fact, the securing, in many cases, of any profit at all. They direct, plan, and systemize the regular farm duties.
The manager must arrange an advantageous distribution of farm labor, keep in intimate touch with all the farm work, know how to do it and be able to judge when it is well done, know what reasonably to expect of his men, know how to direct labor so as to meet adequately each season’s demand and so as to provide employment at all times.
The manager must study the efficiency of different classes of workers. Too often farm profits are thought to depend upon small wages rather than upon experience and ability. The good manager will not make this mistake. The old belief that anyone can farm has been abandoned. Almost anyone can learn to farm, but the losses by the inexperience of an apprentice must be carefully avoided. Many a prospect of a full crop of corn as evidenced by the regularity of “stand in the row” has been reduced to a three-fourths return by an inexperienced plowboy plowing the young plants out or leaving them covered. An experienced plowman with an improved cultivator would have made a profit possible where the inexperienced hand caused a loss. The better worker is worthy his hire and better wages. The demand is growing in farming as in other industries for trained workers. The yields that the farm manager is able to secure are dependent so largely on his knowledge of labor and ability to direct it, that particular study should be given the labor problem of the farm by anyone preparing to assume the responsibilities of farm management.
Farm work is not accomplished by separate groups of workers so much as by the same group of workers being employed in the appropriate undertakings at different seasons, as the manager directs.