St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1913-10-15
FARM EFFICIENCY
County Agent viii Try To Develop
It-Agent Managers Address
ed Farmers.

is to be encouraged by County Agent
Stimson in Caledonia county if he
follows the instructions of his super
visors as given at the meeting in
the Commercial Club room at the
Y. M. c. A. building last Friday even
ing. The chief speakers were L. G.
Dodge in charge of the county agent
work in New England and Prof. l.. A.
Clinton of Washington, d. c., in
charge of the work in the North At
lantic states. The meeting was held
after day spent by these two gentle
men, County Agent Stimson and Pres.
B H. Hallett of the Farmers Asso-
citation, touring the county and study
ing the conditions. There was a good
attendance of farmers from this and
neighboring towns and the talking
was of nature that interested them.
l.. G. Dodge
Pres Hallett presided and intro
duced L. G. Dodge. He spoke of the
meeting here last spring when he out
lined what "a county agent should
do. From what he had seen during
the day he was satisfied he had
been doing the work as outlined.
The most important and far-reaching
work for him to do now is to get
the farmers to studying their balance
sheets, or the business end of farm
ing. This does not mean an elab-
crate and difficult system of book
keeping but a record of business
that will show the sums of money
paid out, those received and the ap-
praisal of the farm, stock and equip
ment. With these facts determined
the farmer can quickly learn wheth
er or not he is getting interest on
his investment and a reasonable sum
for wages. If the account shows
that you are getting less than five
per cent interest and good wages,
you should either improve your
methods or invest your money some
where else where it will earn inter
est and go to work for wages.
Mr.. Stimson is prepared to help
the farmers in this work. He has
studied conditions here until he
knows the farmers who are making
the farm pay and how the successful
men reduce their expenses. Any
farmer can talk to him frankly be-
cause he will not make your busi-
ness public.
A study of>6 900 farms in different
parts of the country to learn exact
~ how they are doing financially en-
ableS the department to state some
general conditions for farm success.
This investigation shows that the man
who gets the most for his time is
getting the biggest product. That
the man with large farm we'll TAX
en- care of can make the most mon
ey because he keeps his equipment
and working force more fully en-
ployed. There must also be a di-
versity in his business. He should !
have at least three branches of~pro- |
duction bringing him a substantial
income, for instance a dairy, pOta-
toes and sheep.
He then gave the results of two
farmers in New Hampshire where |
one man earned $3.50 besides inter
est and the other lost $341 after |
for interest. The man who |
lost paid out $3.50 for labor while |
the other man paid out only $40.
Each man had about the same /
amount of stock and the trouble |
with the loser was he had little |
more than one man should attempt |
to do but not enough to keep two
men protitably employed through
out the year. To get the best eff
cheney on the farm you must either
reduce your business so less help |
can be profitably employed or else
increase and keep the help you now
have busy all the time. To help
you adjust your business so you
can get the best return from your
teams and your labor is what the
agent wishes to do and he
sr,S
publicity.
Prof. l.. A. Clinton
Prof. Clinton told of conditions
ne had found in other sections Wis
ted and while he could not say
hat Caledonia county was the best
'arming county he had seen he
could say he had seen things here he
never had seen in any other county.
While there is some land here never
to be titled people have
plenty of good tillable land from
which to make a good living
He said there was something
Else than good farms, good build
ngs and a good balance on the
light side of the book and that was
rood citizenship. He had seen
armers who had not made so much
money as others but they had raised
family of children, given them a
rood education and prepared them
or good men and women and
hese farmers were as much of a
success as any.
He then told of some things he
ound in New York where the bus
ness men we're helping the farm
,rs' organizations very materially.
This is not entirely desirable as the
armer should pay enough to give
lin a live interest in the success
# the organization. We first at
empted to educate our farmers at
he agricultural colleges but the
'oung men who finished their
courses there did not go back to
he farms because theY belieVhd