Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-05-22
LURE RUINS CITY men
City Man Liable to Failure When
Turning to Country, Says East
ern College Professor.


fool at agriculture, where the rube
makes an easy living?
Can a man from the city buy a !
farm and make it pay?
These questions enter the mind of
almost every city man now and then
when the farm-owning bee enters the |
ventilator of his derby.
"Yes, he can make it pay, provid-
ing" answers Prof. o. S. Morgan,
who is a specialist on the subject.
He is the second man at Columbia
University to occupy the chair of ag-
riculture; the first held that distinc-
tion in 1894
I YES" says Professor Morgan, re-
ported by the New York Evening
Sun, "there is a place for the city
man on the farm, providing he comes
prepared to cope with the questions
that will arise there.
-Four out of five city men who go
into farming with intentions of max
ing that their future work prepare
for it by one or two months of cas-
ual reading of farmers bulletins and
like literature, and think they are
farm wise. These men are elected to
funk.
"The trouble with city men is that
they think that in few months, or
a years study at the most, they can
go out on farm and teach farming
to men who have been at it all their
lives.
at will be generally conceded that
city men ought to stay in the city
and make good city men and farmers
ought to stay on the farm and make
good farmers. But when the city
man does go on the farm he ought
at least to prepare for the work
which the farmer has been studying
all his life. When countrymen come
to the city they always start at the
bottom. There are thousands of sue
cessful business men in New York
who came here from the farm and
no one would ever know it, for they
all started from the bottom and went
to the top. When city men go to
the farm they begin at the top and
go down to the bottom.
Most city men going to the farm
commit their first piece of folly
when they buy their farm land from
the agent Too many agents make il
their business to convince people
that piece of land really worth
$4,000 is great bargain at $4,000.
MANY of the deluded chaps who
are looking for bargain land near
New York have palmed off on them
scabby New York state land. They
somehow cannot realize that shrewd,
long-headed farmers have years ago
gone all over New York state with
a fine tooth comb and appropriated
all the good land. One should not
expect to find good land for sale in
, the hands of a real estate agent
There are no more free or bargain
lands. Good New York land now
commands an average price of from
$3.50 to 5000 an acre. Few New
Workers seem to know that.
"And then the city man, even if
q
having fails to make himself thor
v oughly familiar with the whole busi-
p ness for two years or so both from
I a practical and scientific standpoint
{ When contemplating buying a farm
he should visit the place at least a
dozen times at different periods oi
q the year to see just what the land
can do. He should consider the
e crops that the land is adapted to and
. the accessibility of the land to rail
| road stations and markets. Does he
Z usually do all that?
Nevertheless city men of the right
h kind are in place on the farm and
Il actually needed there. Good bust
0 ness men intent on making the farm
). their future business and willing tC
z, exchange their business abilities fol
k some farmers practical experience
e will lend new color and significance
5, to farm life. The farmer lacks the
Il habit of bookkeeping and of accu
y rately computing profits and losses
: The business of the average farmel
n continually has leaks of some sor
somewhere, though his figuring al
ways shows him profit. Accurate
r. accounting figures in his own labo
and that of his wife and children