The chief factor in making agriculture permanent is that the social, educational, recreational and business opportunities shall equal those of the city or town. Farming must become sufficiently profitable that the farmer can reasonably expect to amass as much wealth as his fellows in the city. If this opportunity does not exist the number of farmers will continue to decrease and the type of men left in this industry will not equal those that have brought the American Farmer to his present high status of leading the globe from the standpoint of per capita output. Progressive evolution in agriculture probably means that the unit of production must develop sufficiently to make a specialization in labor possible that will compare favorably with that of other industries.
The farmer’s life offers the greatest opportunity for expression of individuality that exists in any vocation. Matters of personality of efficiency, and of organizing and business ability are more directly expressed in the returns he receives and in the direct sense of accomplishment he experiences than in any other line of endeavor. The man who is alert, quick, wide-awake and observant, is more completely appreciated than in any other industry, for he must discover his needs and gain his rewards thru close association with each of the manifold phases of Nature. There is no one to tell him the things to do except himself, and his direct measure of his own results are the chiefest of his rewards.
Nevertheless many improvements in the housing and social conditions of the farm must take place. The standards of the city with its home conveniences and labor-saving devices must be made available to the housewife and her family, their need for companionship must be met by improved social conditions.
The war developed a very fallacious argument in many branches of industry thru the assurance of cost of production plus a certain profit on government war contracts. It has given many industries, not excluding farming, the idea that they are entitled to a profit on everything they will do regardless of their efficiency or the demand for their product. The old economic fact that profits do not come unless a demand for products exists is ignored.
It is only by treating agriculture as a national industry run along strictly business lines that the necessary profits will be assured. The growing of crops must be co-ordinated with the demands for farm produce, just as a manufacturing concern adjusts its output to the growth of its sales organization. The great disadvantage is that agriculture is organized on the small unit basis, but with the proper study of the problem, and with constantly growing intelligence among farmers, organization will be as feasible as anywhere in our citizenship. Farmers will then confer oftener with the industries so closely related to their business and understand the problems as a whole rather than merely as the problems of a farmers.
From Armour’s Hand Book of Agriculture, as reprinted on the front page of The Hertford County Herald, Ahoskie, N.C., Friday, June 10, 1921
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