Our land laws, our traditions and our practices are based upon the idea that a farm is to provide activity and support for but one family. In order, therefore, that the son may marry and begin to develop his life in his own way, it is essential to reorganize in some manner the method of managing the farm or to enlarge or, perhaps, specialize its activities. This may be accomplished on a simple partnership basis, or it may be in some such line as outlined in the illustrations which have been given. In other occupations such co-operative effort is the rule rather than the exception. That it is more difficult to effect satisfactory arrangements in farming must be conceded, else they would be more common. Doubtless it will often tax the ingenuity of father and son to devise the plans best suited to meet their particular problem.
There still remains to consider another form of business relation as applied to farming which has become almost universal in trade and transportation. The following incident may illustrate and emphasize the problem better than abstract discussion: One day a man walked into an office and stated that a friend had a half million dollars to invest in farming, provided that he could be convinced that the money would be invested profitably.
Does your friend desire to buy land in any particular locality?
Yes, replied the promoter, he wishes to buy land near ——. He has some sentiment about it. He was born in that neighborhood.
Well, that is a rather bad beginning. Farming on sentiment is dangerous, especially when the sentiment is in no way related to the business.
The facts were that the region indicated was recognized to be one of the most unpromising sections of the state.
If you undertake to invest a half million dollars in one neighborhood, continued the adviser, you will pretty certainly fail to earn interest on your investment.
Why? inquired the promoter.
Before you could possibly buy any considerable part of the land the owners of the farms you desire to buy would have doubled or perhaps trebled the price asked for their holdings. It is one thing to earn interest on an investment of $30 an acre and quite another to earn an equal per cent on $60 or $90 an acre.
In the second place, farmers are content to accept less per cent on their capital than they would if it was loaned at interest, because the farm furnishes a home as well as a business. When you buy up all these farms and convert them into a single enterprise you will destroy their home value. You cannot hope to compete with the man, who, because his farm furnishes him a home, is content with an otherwise small return on his investment.