Imperial Valley press., 1913-09-30
Able Agricultural Writer
Gives His Opinion of
California Farm of Future

have shown, in the citrus districts of
the state, how not to waste water,
and it is only short time until
elsewhere an equally good use Of
water will be made.
The farm of the future will usually
be a small farm, owned by the man
who tills the soil, but the farmer will
not be like a European peasant; ne
will be intelligent, educated and pros
porous. 1t is proverbially true that
the man who works for himself works
best. Hired help will never expend
the energy or display the interest that
will be put forth by the man who is
working for himself, neither will the
tenant farmer make proper use Of
the soil. When a man owns and tills
just the land that he and his family
can look after, perhaps with the help
of hired man or so, he will have a
direct personal interest in his work,
and can make that land produce in
a way that hired help on a large
ranch never could.
In part it is true that the success
full farmer often buys the farm ad-
joining him to raise more corn TO
feed more hogs, to get more money to
buy more land, and so on, but it is
more often true that the big farmer
farms only until he can subdivide his
land and sell it to persons who will
get more out of it than he ever could.
AS an actual fact, we do not remen-
Der ever visiting a large ranch in Cal
ifornia where things were not run
at more or less loose ends, or had not
been so managed at some time or an
other, simply because it is practically
impossible to hire good management
that will get work done efficiently and
economically with hired help. The
only exceptions have been where the
owner himself was resident manager
and man of brains and ability,
working up most probably from the
bottom and knowing from practical
experience what he was doing.
There may be good absentee owned
large farms, but the corporation
owned farm, run by hired manager,
is usually too much of a fizzle to be
very profitable; the individual farmer
who knows his business makes such
land give double the income it would
under the best of big farm manage
ment, and it is ridiculous to believe for
an instant that, with things on a
proper basis, the big land owner can
hold out against the small owner.
not even the best man.
ager on a large ranch can secure
with hired labor as valuable produc-
tion per acre as the owner of small
farm who uses brains and muscle to-
gether. This fact is becoming more
prominent all the time, as good hired
help on the farm is becoming more
difficult to secure every year and
good help does not remain help, but
secures land to work independently.
Fortunate it is that it is possible for
this to be SO, and, despite the increas-
ing value of land, it evidently seems
bound to continue that way.
The historian may point to the fact
that agriculture in Europe, peoplcd
by the races from which Americans
have sprung, has largely developed
into the tenant system, or the large
with out and out hired labor,
but here there are two things that
can prevent such development. One
is cooperation in buying and selling,
the other is sound system of farm
finance. The first, we have started on
a firm footing, and with it are making
rapid strides. = The second we have
but every reader Of the Pa
cific Rural Press will know from what
the editor has written Of his obser-
vations in Europe that soon we are
going TO be as well fixed here as they
are across the, Atlantic.
For its effect upon agriculture and
small holdings this means that the
young man with ability and initiative
can get hold of farm on his personal
credit at what is at present an un-
believably low rate of interest; he
can have half q lifetime to pay the