Morris tribune., 1907-01-05


Of hiring men ON long -time contract
and keeping them partially unpro
ductive at some seasons, in order tt
have labor available when the season
Of activity begins. The cost of horse
labor likewise is an enormous expense
on the majority OF western farms de.
| voted to grain production. The aver.
oge length Of the working day fol
| horses on Minnesota farms is shown
to be little more than three hours and
the total cost of keeping one horse
for year to be $75 to 800. The cost
of horse labor on any farm operation
can be materially reduced if the
syste M of farm manager ent provides
regular work for the horses, for a
horse can work an average through
out the year of five to eight hours a
day with about the same cost to keep
as he can work three hours.
Concentration in farming by man
aging the lands in large estates would
result in a more systematic organiza-
ton of some features of farm pro-
duction. The values consumed in
farm machinery, for example, can
undoubtedly be decreased under ex-
tensive farming conditions and tran
sient labor also can be more easily
employed and more effectively util-
Tied.
While consolidation of farm lands
under few managers having excep-
tional ability would undoubtedly have
many advantages in furthering system
and efficient use of capital and labor
on farms, the disadvantages in such a
system should not be overlooked. The
creation of large estates would tend
to create large wage earning or
peasant like labor class and to greatly
disorgonize the development of good
American citizens in the independent
home on the farm of family size. 1t
is q question, also, whether the fertil-
ity Of the soil can be conserved as
well under sslarge estate" farming as
under system where small piece
of land is under the supervision of a
man who will care for the soil and
husband it's strength because of an
innate love for the land which makes
his home and is to be the home of his
children.
And yet it must be admitted that,
under our present methods of farm
management in the Middle West,
majority of the farms of medium size
are not as well planned nor as well
managed to yield good profits at the
least expense of capital, labor and
fertility as are the large farms super
intended by men of unusual business
ability. Waste of machinery and
other capital, waste of labor and waste
of fertility are conspicuous features of
the agriculture of the Middle West,
The settler has sacrificed soil fertility
and great values of farm machinery
ia order to obtain quick profits and
ready cash and then as the country,
has grown older he has neglected to
remod del his business to meet the new
and changed conditions. 1t is not idle
to sound this warning, that,
unless the next generation which tills
the soils of the Middle West puts the
fields under systematic crop rotation
and better systems of farm manage
ment, fertilizer problems such as now
confront the East and the South will
have to be met before many decades.
On the other hand, if the proper ply
steal conditions for soil decomposition
are maintained by systematic crop
rotations and intelligent methods of
farm management, the producing
of the prairie soils can be
maintained indefinitely. Land on
which crops are rotated systematical-
ly demands more Intelligent methods
of field management, more intelligent
use of live stock, machinery and other
capital and labor. All these are
corollaries of crop rotation and the
result of systematic crop rotation
must always be increasing profits due
to greater productiveness in the soil,
more effective employment of capital
and labor and sounder business meth
DDS. The intensive systems of farm
ing practiced near the great cities of
the eastern part of the United States,
where grain and mill feeds are ship
ped in from the West, cannot be ex-
tended to majority of the farms in
the United States. Such systems of
farming can only be practiced at the
of the fertility in other agri-
cultural regions from which concen-
trated feed stuffs are purchased, and
they are therefore undesirable for the
ma ioritv of marican farms