OPPORTUNITIES IN AGRICULTURE
Some years ago, a prominent magazine contained an article entitled
"The American Farmer's Balance Sheet," in which a descendant of the
second and sixth Presidents of the United States was shown to have
made in one year a profit of over $19,000 from a 6,000-acre wheat farm
in North Dakota, and over $50,000 from a 6,000-acre corn farm in Iowa.
A few months later there appeared in the same magazine another
article, the purport of which was that great wealth, whether it be
obtained from farming, the mining of coal, the manufacture of steel or
the selling of merchandise, is the exception, while the man, in
whatever calling, who rears and educates a family and at the same time
lays by a small competence is the normal American product. The moral
is that a $500-a-year-income farm is a more important factor to the
national welfare than a $50,000-a-year-income farm.
In the latter article the writer tells of two brothers who had been
reared on a Michigan farm. Reuben was tired of the country. He went to
the city and apprenticed himself to a harnessmaker. Against the advice
of young friends, Lucien bought sixty acres of land and ran in debt
for it.
In a year Reuben was earning a dollar a day. He wore a white shirt and
pointed shoes, not because they were more comfortable, but because
other people did. He had no debts. Lucien had fair crops, but they
yielded no more than enough to pay interest on the mortgage. He wore a
ragged shirt, patched breeches and cowhide boots. People said that
Reuben was making a gentleman of himself and learning a trade in the
bargain.
In two years, Reuben had completed his apprenticeship. He was now
earning $10 a week. He lived in a house that had a fancy veranda and
green blinds. His clothing improved. Lucien was still ragged, but he
paid his interest and $300 each year upon the principal. People said
that Reuben, the harnessmaker, was bound to come to the front.
In ten years more, Reuben was still foreman of the shop at $50 a
month. He lived in the same house, and smoked Havana cigars. Lucien
built a new house and a barn. He smoked a pipe. The neighbors saw that
every year he made some improvement on the farm. He wore a white shirt
when he went to town, and he had a pair of button shoes. People said
that Lucien was becoming a prominent man. His word was good at the
bank.
Reuben began to complain that harnessmaking was too confining. His
health was breaking down. The proprietor was selfish. He would not die
and leave the business to him. Harnessmaking was not what it used to
be. Lucien bought more land. He went fishing when he wanted to. Reuben
came out now and then to spend Sunday. The birds seemed to sing more
sweetly than ever before and the grass was greener. Lucien endorsed
Reuben's note.
Lucien has pigs, and cows, and sheep, and chickens, and turkeys, and
horses. He raises potatoes and beans, and corn, and wheat, and garden
stuff, and fruit. He buys his groceries and clothing and tobacco.
Reuben buys everything. At the close of the year Lucien puts from $100
to $300 in the bank or takes a trip to Washington. Reuben does well if
he come out even. Lucien does not fret; Reuben grumbles.
The picture is true to life. It has been enacted and re-enacted in
every one of the older communities of the United States.
It has always seemed to the writer, however, that the author of this
suggestive story left out two important personages. They were Sarah,
the wife of Reuben, and Mary, the wife of Lucien. Sarah liked to make
tatting and to go to pink teas. Mary preferred to raise flowers and
fluffy little chickens. Nothing is to be said for or against the taste
of either. Each has a right to her preference, but their point of view
cannot be left out of the problem when a young man is considering his
future occupation.
It has been said, and probably with considerable truth, that most
congressmen would not hang around Washington if it were not for their
wives.
No one must mistake this story as an attempt to compare harness making
with farming, much less to compare living in the city with life in the
open country.
What it does is to compare the struggle and the development of the man
who goes into business for himself with the man who accepts employment
at wages.
Because of less responsibility and less sacrifices at the beginning,
the tendency is for young men to work for wages rather than to engage
in business for themselves. This is becoming more and more true as
industrial methods make it more and more difficult for the young man
to command the requisite capital.
The man who works for wages usually has the larger income and appears
the most prosperous during the earlier years as compared with his
brother who enters business. The business man, however, who, while
young, economizes and invests his savings in his business gradually
outstrips his wage-earning brother. During later life he is able to
enjoy the fruits of his earlier economy and investments, while failing
powers and keen competition of younger and better trained men restrict
the opportunities of the wage earner, who has generally spent his
wages in better living, or at least in more outward show.
This is well shown by the fact that it is customary to make provision
by means of pensions for wage earners of all sorts, while no such
arrangement is made for men who engage in business, be that farming,
trade or transportation.
For many reasons, however, young men will continue to seek employment
at wages, even if only for a few years, or until some capital has been
acquired which may be invested in business.
The question arises, therefore, what opportunities there may be for
the young man who desires to engage, eventually, in the business of
farming to work for wages along lines that will not be too far removed
from the business in which he is subsequently to engage. It will be
assumed that the young man has prepared himself in that same
painstaking way that he would if he were preparing to become an
engineer, a lawyer or a physician.
There is a constant demand for men with proper training as managers of
farms. As stated elsewhere, the wages are seldom less than $40 nor more
than $75 a month to beginners, although for men of experience $5,000 a
year has been paid in exceptional cases for the management of large
enterprises. These positions often constitute ideal opportunities for
capable young men. They require, however, not only an intimate
knowledge of farming, but the ability, also, to manage men.
The ability to manage men requires the combination of decision and
tact, not possessed by all, and not easily acquired by education or
practice. Not only must the farm manager be able to manage workmen,
but oftentimes he must manage his employer, who may have little
knowledge of farming but still insists upon having his own ideas
executed, as he, of course, has a perfect right to do.
Another danger is the fact that where the farm is owned by a man
engaged in other business, many circumstances may arise to cause the
owner to change his plans or sell his property. There is often,
therefore, a lack of permanency in these positions.
The United States Department of Agriculture employs upward of 5,000
people. There is a constant demand for young men to recruit this
service, including experts in soils, plant production, animal
husbandry, dairying, chemistry and forestry. Beginners receive from
$800 to $1,000 a year. When they are sent out of Washington into field
service, as many of them are, they receive their expenses, including
subsistence in addition. Young men may rise rather rapidly by
promotion to $1,600 a year, then more slowly to $2,000, while an
occasional man is promoted to the more responsible position paying
$3,000 to $4,000 a year.
The positions are all filled through the competitive civil service
examinations. Examinations are held at more or less irregular
intervals, usually several times a year, in various sections of the
country. A letter addressed to the United States Civil Service
Commission will secure the necessary information concerning openings
and the general requirements for the examinations.
Employment in the United States Department of Agriculture often
affords opportunity for varied experience and wide observation of
farming methods throughout the country. Such employment is generally
to be considered desirable if not continued for too long a period. As
a matter of fact, men are constantly leaving the service to engage in
practical or other work, a fact which makes the demand for young men
greater than would otherwise be the case.
The various agricultural colleges and experiment stations are
constantly seeking men. It would seem that the demand would eventually
be satisfied. As a matter of fact, however, it grows greater year by
year, both because these institutions continue to grow and because
young men are attracted more and more to practical work. It is stated
that in one institution there were 46 graduates in the course in
animal husbandry and that 44 went into practical work and only two
sought employment in college or station. The salaries are about the
same as in government positions.
Agricultural newspaper work offers an attractive field for young men
who are properly trained and have a taste for this kind of work.
There is also beginning to be quite a demand for teachers of
agriculture in the high schools. As a rule a man is wanted who can
teach, in addition, the sciences usually taught in secondary school.
The customary salary is from $70 to $100 a month on an eight to ten
months' basis. An experience of one or two years as a teacher in a
high school, or even the lower grades of the public school, should be
invaluable to the young man who expects subsequently to engage in
farming. This is particularly true if he has not had the opportunity
of a college training.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that the salaries mentioned in
this chapter are obtained only by young men who possess certain
qualifications. To secure them, they must be men of ability,
integrity, virtue and industry. No man who is not willing to make the
preparation necessary to master his subject can expect to succeed. He
must, also, be a man of absolute honesty, and he must lead a clean
life. It was Bismarck who said, of German university students,
"One-third die out; one-third rot out; the other third rule Germany."
Every man who will may choose whether he will belong to Bismarck's
second or third class.
The question for the young man of 20 is not merely as to the morrow,
but what is likely to be the trend of events during the next 35 to 50
years.
"In 1800 the United States nowhere crossed the Mississippi and nowhere
touched the Gulf of Mexico." In 1850 the country west of the
Mississippi River was agriculturally largely an undiscovered region.
Since 1870 we have much more than doubled our population and our
agriculture. Since that time we have subdued more of the open country
to the uses of man than we had been able to do in 250 years of our
previous history.
During the past 300 years we have prided ourselves upon being an
agricultural people. We have been an agricultural people, but our
problems have not been chiefly those of the agriculturist, but those
of the engineer.
Our problem, in the past, has not been to make two blades of grass to
grow where but one grew before. Our problem has been to harvest and
transport two bushels of wheat or two bales of cotton with the labor
previously required to harvest one. Our crops have been so abundant
that the agricultural problems connected with the growing of them has
been secondary to the engineering problems of their harvesting and
transportation. The self-binder and the steam locomotive have been our
achievements.
If the writer mistakes not, the future problem will not be so much the
harvesting and transporting, as the growth of the crops. In the
future, young men will be needed who have studied the science of
living things in order that they may make, literally, two blades of
grass to grow where but one grew. To men who will be able to do so,
will come success and honor.