Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1889-07-11
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Profitable Farm Help.

The amount and value OF farm help
that can be profitaply employed de-
ponds on many circumstances. 1t is
probably true that the great majority of
farmers do not hire enough, and equal
ly true that they hire more than
they can make pay. We are used to
considering the low prices Of farm
products as the chief factor in deter
mining what farmers can do. 1t is
often said that prices are too low to
hire much. Yet on Land able to yield
full crops, and if the farmer be himself
a man of energy and push, it is better
for him to hire what he needs to keep
it properly cultivated than to let such
land lie idle, or after planting to be
overgrowu with weeds.
II the farmer himself be willing and
able 20 work he will get enough out Of
his employees to make it profitable to
hire them. If he be shiftlcss and in
efficient he will probably run ashore
quickly whatever be his policy about
hiring help.
1t should be the farmers aim to
make his land and system OF cropping
good enough to warrant the largest
possible expenditure OF labor. If he
is a good worker himself he can get
more work out Of hired help and thus
afford to hire more. A diversified
system Of husbandry enables him to
employ more help by the month or
year. This is best for both parties,
because with greatly diversified crops
hnt 10 Htnh mt oil
The ability to devise farm improve
ments that will pay for themselves is
also another important item. On the
millions of acres where undertaking
is most needed some portion of hired
help varying with the capital of its
owner should be employed in that
work. Three or four crops will pay
the expense by their increased yields
on well-draincd land, and the i'm
provement is for all time. If it needs
the extra crops for four years To pay
the cost of the drains it is equal to
twenty-five per cent. for the money.
Not many kinds of business pay equal
to that.
Improving the productive capacity
of soil in any way is generally so di-
rcctly profitable that the man who is
steadily doing it can well afford to hire
more help than can one whose land is
all the time growing poorer. 1t is be-
cause most farmers have not enough
capital in proportion to their acres to
farm as they should that they do not,
and cannot afford to hire. II the crop
is to yield less than the cost Of produc-
ing it, the farmer himself is obviously
the only man who can at all afford to
do it. This means for him "a good deal
of hard work for little pay, and it is
not possible to hire men on these
terms.
Market gardeners work small areas of
land aud employ mo"e help on two or
three acres, often on less than one acre
than many farmers do on farms OF 100 or
200 acres. 1T is objected that this is
gardening. 1t is, but gardening no less
than farming is soil cultivation ana
governed by the same general rules.
In the market garden the employer is
obliged to underdrAin and maneur in
the most thorough manner, in order
that he may pay for the great amount
Of help that he is obliged to hire.
Now in the country cannot the farmers
take this same lesson to themselves
in slightly different shape? The
more nearly their land approXimates
the conditions of that worked by the
market gardener, the more help the
farmer C N, and even must, hire. The
farm cannot DO worked over into a
garden at once. Probably before it is
the owner will see the advantage of
selling off part of it to be worked I'M
der other management. This is a limit
to the amount of land that even the best
Manager can probably work. 1t is a
good deal easier to find that limit than
to find the limit of help a man can pro-
ftably employ if soil and all condi-
tons are just what they should be.
The chief reason why farmers can
not afford to hire more help is because
their land is just rich enough to pay
them a poor living for working in, but
not good enough to allow anything for
extra labor The first step out OF this
rut is to begin improving the farm.
Cultivate and manure few acres
thoroughly, doing it at first without
hiring and by your own labor. That
will perhaps give you some profit
which can be used to manure and till
other acres in the same way. When a
farm has been brought up SO that the
labor OF one man, aside from its own
err, can be employed and paid for from
its produce, the next step is to still
further increase its productiveness. If
the same careful system is continued,
each upward step will be easier than
the one preceding until the farm is
brought to us high degree as is
possible under the circumstances.
There is never loss from rich land if
properly managed; but what may be
extra fertility for stock and grain
farming might not be rich enough for
the requirement of the small fruit and
vegetable gardener.-American Guilt
vatOr.
The Garden.
The farmer who has no garden is