CHAPTER III
FARM ORGANIZATION
In the last chapter were discussed the most common methods by which a young man acquires an opportunity to engage in farming. This chapter will discuss some less common arrangements by which may be bridged that period between the time the son is ready to go into the business and the time he may assume the complete control of the ancestral or other farm. It will also suggest a method for the continuous business management of a farm enterprise.
As stated, the most common reason for a farm changing from one family to another is the fact that no heir is willing to assume the obligation which is involved in paying for the interest of the other heirs. Connected with this problem is the further fact that the father is not usually ready to give up the management of the farm at the time one of his sons reaches the age to go into active business.
The reason for this state of affairs is made clear by the results of insurance statistics. The period that a man may be expected to live can be obtained by taking the difference between his present age and 90 and dividing the remainder by two. Thus, a young man who is 20 may reasonably expect to live 35 years, or until he is 55 years old. A man at 50, however, still has an expectation of life of 20 years, and the man of 70 of 10 years.
A farmer of 50 will usually have one or more sons ready to go to farming if they ever expect to engage in farming. But, as has been shown, a man of 50 has a reasonable expectation of 20 more years of life and cannot turn over the farm to his son, completely, without destroying his own opportunity for earning a livelihood. As things are usually arranged, therefore, there is no place on the average farm for the son, except as a hired hand, which is not desired permanently by either father or son.
Frequently the father fails to appreciate the earning power of his son, and, what is more important, that the boy has grown into a man. One day a teacher called a student of agriculture to his office, when the following conversation occurred:
John Armstrong, Austinburg, Ashtabula county, Ohio, was a dairy tenant farmer for twenty years with nothing to show for his labor but a debt of $500. He then bought the farm of 144 acres on which he lives, without cash payment, assuming a debt of $7,000. At the end of ten years he owned his farm and equipment valued at $20,000. He has two sons who have been important factors in his success. A year ago one of them married and went to a farm of his own, the father paying him $3,000 for his former labor.