Opportunity for promotion is exceptional in farm management and will naturally be accorded you—in fact, you will be given preference—if your efficiency is evident. Men with ideas, who think and do things, are in demand on the farm. Having taken the vocational training in farm management, having skipped no links in the chain of development, and having acquired by reading and observation all the information pertaining to it, promotion will be but natural and rapid in the occupation which you have made a specialty, and upon which you have made yourself a reliable authority. Think it over seriously. Upon training depends your future, your occupation, and your success in life. You may succeed without training, but you are more likely to succeed if you have been retrained and readjusted to the new conditions which will confront you in earning a livelihood.
After training you should not expect to begin at the top unless you have had practical experience and are in a position to become an owner or a tenant at once.
Salaries
The positions of farm manager, superintendent, or foreman are considered from the salary rather than the wage standpoint and are usually of annual engagement for the calendar year, as practically all farm operations have ended with the close of the year, making it a most suitable time for the changing of men, if found advisable. The salary paid is proportionate to experience and efficiency and commensurate with that of other callings. As in other occupations, it may be small at the start, but will increase with efficiency. Commonly farm managers and superintendents are receiving annually from $1,000 to $3,000, and on large estates often $4,000 or $5,000, with many perquisites, such as dwelling, garden and truck land, fuel, and the privilege of keeping a cow, pigs, and poultry. Farm foremen are paid from $500 to $1,200 with perquisites. Sometimes the beginning salary is a little less than the minimum, but often carries a contingent bonus when the year ends with satisfactory results. The general level of pay is likely to advance under the unusual conditions which now obtain in agriculture.
Your salary in the country may be less than in the city, but your living expenses are greatly decreased by the perquisites mentioned, and in not having presented to members of the family the temptations of the city to spend money unnecessarily. Then, too, the healthful conditions of the country prevent much sickness and consequent loss of time and there are therefore fewer doctor’s bills. Therefore the saving from the annual income as farm manager is equal to, and in a majority of cases, exceeds the returns from a city position, besides placing you in line for independent ownership.
As in other positions, that of manager and the amount of salary commanded varies with the magnitude of the farm and the capacity of the manager to develop himself and the opportunities entrusted to him. A farm boy, after two years in an Agricultural College, took a foreman’s position starting at $600 a year and perquisites, the second year he received $900, then became manager at $1,800, and now receives $3,000. In five years he has quadrupled the income.
Overcoming Your Disability
Your disability has an excellent opportunity of being overcome in farming. Handicaps that would interfere in other training courses are corrected in many of the farm processes by the therapeutic exercises so interesting and variable. The opportunities are so great that the handicapped may develop his own vocation on the farm. Devices to beat your handicap and make it possible for you to do the things you did not imagine you could perform have been invented and manufactured in almost every country for the benefit of the disabled in war, which Uncle Sam has now available for your use.
When you are advised that your handicap permits you to return to the farm, the sooner the practice of your training is begun the greater will be the therapeutic value. This is your reconstruction, your individual man-struggle for restoration in correcting the disability which you acquired in the great world-struggle.
As a farm manager, landowner, tenant, supervisor, superintendent, or foreman, the experienced man capable of using a trained brain in directing others can succeed in spite of almost any disability. If the occupation places you in position to devote your time principally to the management of your farm, or the one you have in charge, you can assign to others such work as you may be incapable of performing yourself.