The Yale expositor., 1916-05-25
new AGRICULTURAL
PROBLEMS SOLVED
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
SUMNER SCHOOL WILL GIVE
VALUABLE SERVICE.
FARM BUSINESS IMPORTANT
Every Farmer and Farmers Son May
Acquire knowledge of Great Value
From Experts Who viii Impart
II This Summer.

East Lansing-Farm business is
characteristic product of the new ag-
riculture. Time was when self-sub-
sistence was the beginning and the
end of farming, but the railroad. inter
urban and telephone have changed all
this and the market must now be
listened to by the farmer in the same
way as by the manufacturer and the
merchant Within the limits fixed by
environment the market determines
his crop routine, his type of farming,
his relations to the middleman and
finally the balance of profit or loss
which greets him at the end of the
season. This change was brought
about in farm business as a distinct
side of agriculture.
Marketing is perhaps the leading as
pect of this new phase of agriculture
and the big place that marketing has
in the farmers outlook is doubtless
caused by the fact that so much of
the high prices which the consumer
pays for farm products disappears be-
fore it reaches the farmer. Perhaps
it may be that the farmer himself is
not good marketer but at any rate
this is one of the problems with which
farm business is concerned. The pro
fitable selling of two blades Of grass"
where only one was sold before has
become the big problem in farming
and all departments of agricultural
study at the State Agricultural Col
lege Lansing, are giving interest and
effort TO this matter.
Inseparable from good farm man
agement goes the scoring of results
known as farm accounting. Where
the profit or loss comes from upon
the farm, and when and why, is the
aspect of farm business Of which ac-
counting takes charge The intensive
style of farming which the city man
seems to cherish as the ideal type
shows up badly when brought 10 the
balances and inventories of the ac-
countant and it is demonstrated that
many of the farmers blue ribbon"
products are his biggest failures.
The higher prices for his products
is not the only way in which this
most wide spread epidemic has af-
fected the farmer. He is buyer as
we'll as seller and the doubling in the
value of land and horses and other
farm necessities in recent years has
done much to cripple his gains. Farm
business teaches that the farmer must
have better means OF credit than he
has previously enjoyed and the "Hol-
lis Rural Credit" bill now pending in
Congress is proof Of the farmers need
along this line. Credit facilities spe-
cialized to his peculiar needs in the
same way that railroads and manufac-
turers have trust companies and mer-
chants have banks will prove long
needed boon TO the farmer. The col
lege has shown a warm interest in
supporting this phase of the farmers
business through numerous confer
ences during the past few years OF
prominent farmers and bankers to dis
cuss this matter.
The get together" movement or CO
operation has not been overlooked by
the college teachers. Business CO
operation has indeed always received
the approval of the college faculty
since one OF the oldest cooperative
merchantile associations within the
state has been maintained upon the
campus for almost two decades. In
recent years the possibilities of using
this cooperative principle among far
mers has been strongly endorsed. It
was at the Michigan Agricultural col
lege that one of the oldest types or
farm cooperative undertakings-the
cattle breeding associations-hadt their
beginning and more recently the study
OF all varieties Of cooperative work
among farmers-selling exchanges,
creameries, elevators and credit So
cieties-has been gone into for con-
structive purposes. II is not the be-
lief of the college that 1t should ac-
lively promote the forming OF coop
erative concerns-the movement in
this direction needs no stimulus-but
Il can be of service in counseling with
new or prospective associations as to
their prospects of success, style OF
organization, bylaws, and other tech
meal details. The disadvantages OF
the unorganized farmers in dealing
with and otherwise. well-organized
world has long since won the
symatphy of thinkers for or
ganization. A marked forward step
along all these lines is planned by
the college for the coming summer
school from June 18th to August LIST
at which specialists will present tho
latest conclusions upon all these sub
jects.
DIR. Edward Jones, OF the Univer-
sity of Michigan will give series of
twenty lectures on the Marketing of
Farm Products" Prof Alexander
Canoe of the Massachusetts, Agricul-