The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1917-03-09
SHOULD ENCOURAGE
FARM ACCOUNTS.
TRAINING COUNTRY BOYS In ACCUR-
ATE BUSINESS METHODS DESIRABLE
DEMONSTRATION WORK.

In the experience of the Agricul-
tural Extension Service no part or
demonstration work pays better than
its encouragement of the keeping OF
farm accounts and crop records. No
one of the correspondence courses it
offers is more valuable than the one
devoted to this phase of farm bust
ness. Especially in its various kinds
of bovs club work this kind of educa-
ton is proving the most useful of all.
Show the boy or the man where he IS
making money at farming and you
have taught him the lesson he needs
and appreciates the most. No cOun-
try schools in Maryland are doing
more to really educate their children
than those in which the teacher is fit
ting arithmetic to the economies of the
farm and home. No better club work
i'm to DO found than in those commun-
tiles where the coming farmers are
taught that no crop is worth growing
unless it is in some way profitable
one. The demonstration of how to
make something on the farm pay and
see the profits take the form of a
bank account is the first great step
toward making the boy feel that his
future should be in his own neighbour
hood and in some branch Of farming.
AS valuable as such lessons are to
the country boy, they are of fully
equal benefit to the adult farmer who
j. engaged in the important business
OF making a living. Whether it is a
record he has kept of his tomato crop
or his herd of COWS or his Wife's poul-
try flock, he is a better farmer and a
wiser business man for 1t.
The type of work being carried
along this line by the county demon
stratiOn agents is most important. An
excellent example is found in the an
nual report of County Agent e. P.
Walls, of Talbot, on work in corn.
OF one of his demonstrators he says,
A B. Highley, of Trappe, planted one
and siX-tenthS acres, according to
demonstration methods. This land
was in corn in 1915. Previous to that
time, it had been in pasture for 20
years. Rye was sown in the fall of
1915 and pastured the spring follow
ing. 1t was allowed to grow up
after pasturing and after being
disced each way was plowed
inches deep on May 3lst and 1900
pounds of ground limestone applied
1t was planted on June 3rd in rows 3
feet inches apart and thinned to 8
stalks. The cultivation was frequent
and shallow all through the summer
Boone County White seed corn was
used, the plot giving a yield of 120
bushels of shelled corn with total
value of $13S. The total cost of grow
ing the crop was $26.2S, giving a net
income of $111.72 or a profit per acre
OF $685." How many farmers know
what even one acre of corn cost them
last year. On the other hand there
are at least 400 country boys in Mary
land who know as a result of their ex-
perience in club work last year. How
about their fathers and their older
brothers and their neighbOrs across
the way? Make farming a real bust
ness is the message of State College
OF Agriculture. Find out what meth
DDS and what crops pay is what it
urges Mr.. Average Farmer to do. He
owes it to his community to enroll
with his County Demonstration Agent
as a demonstration of the kind OF
farming that pays