The midland journal., 1917-01-12
SH0ljLD ENCOURAGE
FARM ACCOUNTS
RAINING COUNTRY BOYS IN Ac.
cURATE BUSINESS METHODS
DESIRABLE.
EM0NsTRATI0N WORK
Proven Most Successful In De.
&termining What Lines OF Farm
ing Are the Most Profit

College Park, Md, Jan. I'm the
experience of the Agricultural Exten-
sion Service no part Of demonstration
work pays better than its encourage
ment of the keeping Of farm accounts
and crop records. No one of the cor
respondence courses it offers is more
valuable than the one devoted to this
phase of farm business. Especially in
Its various kinds of boys club work
this kind of education 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 country schools in Maryland
are doing more to really educate their
children than those in which the teach
er is fitting arithmetic to the economies
of the farm and home. No better
club work is to be found than in those
communities where the coming farm
rs are taught that no crop is worth
rowing unless it is in some way a
AftableT one. The demonstration of
TO make something on the farm
pay and see the profits take the form
bf bank account is the first great
Rtep toward making the boy feel that
lis future should be in his own neigh
g6rhood and in some branch of farm
ing.
AS valuable as such lessons are to
the country boy, they are of fully equal
benefit to the adult farmer who is en-
gagged in the important business of
making living. Whether it is a rec
ord he has kept of his tomato crop or
his herd of cows or his wife's poultry
flock, he is better farmer and wiser
business man for it.
The type OF work being carried along
this line by the county demonstration
agents is most important. An excel
lent example is found in the annual re-
port 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 demon
stration 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 pas
tured the spring following. It was al
lowed to grow UP after pasturing and
after being disced each way was plow-
ed 8 inches deep on May 31st and 2,700
pounds Of ground limestone applied.
1t was planted on June 3rd in rows
feet 6 inches apart and thinned to
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 a total
value of $13S The total cost of grow
Alng the crop was $26.28, giving net
ncome of $111.72 or profit per acre
$685." How many farmers know
Ehat even one acre of corn cost them
kst year? On the other hand there
q least 400 country boys in Mary
rho know as result Of their ex-
ce In club work last year. How
their fathers and their older
Es and their neighbors across
y? Make farming real busi-
the message Of State College
culture. Find out what methods
lat crops pay is what it urges
|erage Farmer to do. He owes
8 community to enroll with his
Demonstration Agent as a
TRAITOR of the kind of farming
Tvs.