Family farm

“ The farm grows the raw material for the food and clothing of all our citizens; it supports directly almost half of them; and nearly half of the children of the United States are born and brought up on the farms. How can the life of the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of opportunity, freer from drudgery, more comfortable, happier and more attractive? ”

“ In the evenings when he drove home late and saw families still struggling with belated chores, he had a dream of a time when every farm would have regular hours, when the family would gather in the evenings not too tired to enjoy each other, when the mothers of the farms, famed in all history for giving the world its sturdiest, brainiest children, would have time to give their best to all their children, to put their best work on the black sheep, or misfits, or handicapped, or delicate ones, for whom there is little special provision in the country outside their own homes. ”

“ As the national organization working on behalf of family farmers for the last 23 years, Farm Aid has helped family farmers stay on the land, organized communities to fight factory farms in their own backyards, and educated eaters about the choices they can make to guarantee healthy, fresh food from family farms. ”

“ The farmer and the farmer's family may or may not be cultivated persons. Cultivation does not come by nature; and the incessant and increasing duties of farm life leave one, however well disposed, but little time and but scant strength for æsthetic study. The farmhouse is the centre of the home life and of the homely thought and feeling of its inmates. The farm on which one has been born and bred is the centre and standpoint from which he regards the world without. ”

“ As the whole of the Communal land thus resembles to some extent a big farm, it is necessary to make certain rules concerning cultivation. A family may sow what it likes in the land allotted to it, but all families must at least conform to the accepted system of rotation. In like manner, a family cannot begin the autumn ploughing before the appointed time, because it would thereby interfere with the rights of the other families, who use the fallow field as pasturage. ”

“ Thus both sons have independent employment requiring managerial ability and the orchard is much more profitable than it otherwise would be.
Our land laws, our traditions and our 38 practices are based upon the idea that a farm is to provide activity and support for but one family. In order, therefore, that the son may marry and begin to develop his life in his own way, it is essential to reorganize in some manner the method of managing the farm or to enlarge or, perhaps, specialize its activities. ”

“ It is certain, also, that the men and the women must be near the stables, that the early and late work of feeding and milking may be promptly and regularly performed. If the family is to live in the village, the cattle must live in the village too. This involves the hauling home of all the hay and grain, and the hauling out again of all manure,—no slight task. If the work is all concentrated on the farm, under the immediate supervision of the farmer, there will be a certain convenience and economy of time. ”

“ The farm garden should be ample and contain not only enough vegetable and small fruits for the use of the family, but a surplus to sell [342] or to give away. The farmer used to large areas is reluctant to undertake anything so small as he imagines the garden to be; hence, too often he plows it and leaves the planting and cultivation of it to the “women folks.” If he knew how to manage a garden he would find that the half-acre of land devoted to small fruits and vegetables could be made the most profitable and pleasurable part of the farm. ”

“ The farmer who can till his own fields and take care of his own stock can live by farming, but no other can. One might not regret this, for it tends to encourage the subdivision of land, but the farm which one man's labor can till is too small to support a family ”

“ If there were no other reason for practicing a somewhat diversified agriculture, the welfare of the [34] workman and his family should form a sufficient one. Happily, many large and demoralizing wheat ranches are being divided into small farms, upon which are being reared the roof-tree, children, fruits and flowers.
To secure a competence, no more activities should be entered into than can be prosecuted with vigor and at a profit. On the other hand, too few activities tend to stagnation and degeneration. ”

“ The farm house is not what is called, a “paying investment.” It is not a direct source of income; neither can the other rural buildings be said to produce a direct income. Generally speaking, the farm house can fulfil but four purposes if properly planned and well constructed: the house may serve to keep the family warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather, dry in wet weather, and to gratify a love for the beautiful. ”

“ The head of many a family is overcast with gloom as he ascertains the true state of his affairs, and perceives how little he has to show from the past year of toil. His family may have been industrious in a general way, and yet been consumers only, and not producers. We knew a farmer's family where there were three daughters just budding into womanhood. On inquiring of the mother what she had to sell to clothe her daughters with, she answered, Not a thing. Have you no butter, eggs, fowls, honey, or bees-wax to sell from this good farm? ”

“ The rural family raised livestock for their own use, but principally for the market, and favored draft horses over tractors, mules or oxen to power farm equipment. This farmer's time was spent on a myriad of duties and details—his function was not yet totally specialized—ranging from butchering hogs to building chicken coops to thinning corn. ”

“ Many parents argued that they had to look ahead if they were going to give their boys a start on farms of their own, but those of wider vision believed that the whole scheme of family life falls down if the home suffers; that it does not pay to build the farm up into a profitable property which is despised by the very children for whom they are giving their lives. ”

“ The enclosure of these commons will lessen their numbers and vastly increase the quantity of products at market. Their cultivated land being of uncommon fertility, a farm of 20 acres supports a family very well, as they have, generally speaking, no fallows, but an endless succession of corn, potatoes, flax, beans, etc. They do nearly all their work themselves, and are passionately fond of buying a bit of land. ”

“ Many farmers work in the field very little, while the wife and mother does the housework not only for her own family, but for from one to three laborers. During the rush of crop raising and harvesting, from April to August, she must be up at four in the morning, and she cannot have her supper until the farm work is all done ”

“ A house-mother of my acquaintance, whose husband owns a "section" farm, suffers much from illness, and has a large family, yet for months has been without any help in her work but that of her little girls,—the oldest not over twelve,—simply because she could not get a servant. The farmers themselves are under less necessity to labor than in many other parts of the country. Farms are comparatively large, and produce large crops, and it pays them to hire laborers. ”

“ This right is acquired after the property has belonged to the family for twenty years, but it is lost after the farm has been in the possession of strangers for three years. There are some farms that have been worked for a thousand years by the descendants of the same family. The best farms are about the banks of the lakes and in the narrow river valleys, and there are many fertile meadows which have never been plowed or put under cultivation, so that there are great future possibilities for tillage. ”

“ As stated, the most common reason for a farm changing from one family to another is the fact that no heir is willing to assume the obligation which is involved in paying for the interest of the other heirs. Connected with this problem is the further fact that the father is not usually ready to give up the management of the farm at the time one of his sons reaches the age to go into active business. ”

“ Small-scale family farms have survived the winds of change that have blown across our country's landscape in recent years. Farmers are ever more entrepreneurial, responding to unique niches and specialty-market opportunities. Many small-scale family farms are responsible for the innovations that are advancing new and enhanced technologies in agriculture and farming systems. ”

“ The farm was afterwards enlarged by other purchases, and the original still remains in the family. The poverty of the soil, its tendency to produce briars, its large amount of heavy timber, with the clearing necessary to be done, made it a place specially favorable for the cultivation of industry. My father was one of those men who never ran short of work; he always had plenty of it for himself and the whole family. ”

“ To have good farming, you must have a considerable farm, upon which capital may be laid out to advantage. But to introduce this change suddenly would turn adrift perhaps twenty families, who now occupy small farms pro indiviso, cultivating by patches, or rundale and runrig, what part of the property is arable, and stocking the pasture as a common upon which each family turns out such stock as they (p. 140) can rear, without observing any proportion as to the number which it can support. ”

“ The existence of the compound family enables some of its workers to carry on farming, while others are employed outside. [136] With the division of the family, which, as we know, is only a question of time, a number of householders will be compelled to stop farming. Such are in the first place those employed yearly or during the [120] summer as farm laborers. At present they number as follows:
The “single” householders permanently employed as farm laborers have in most cases stopped working on their plots. ”

“ In any case he will, if successful, gradually cancel his obligation and become owner of the farm. That no heir is willing to assume this responsibility is the most common reason for a farm changing from one family to another, and the disruption of community interests. ”

“ He wants to improve his scale of living for the sake of his family. By making the farm home a place of comfort his sons and daughters will be more content to remain on the land. He does not seek to hoard money ”

“ Small-scale family farms are a vital part of U.S. agricultural and rural life, and their activities add significantly to the economic and social strength of communities everywhere.
The majority of America's farms are small-out of more than two million farms, seven out of ten gross less than $50,000 annually. Small-scale farms, with their varied range of needs and interests, provide an array of agricultural products to the consumers of our Nation and our world. ”

“ If this may be so, there will be some comfort for the housekeeper in the farmstead on a rainy day when the wood from the pile outdoors is so wet that it will not burn, and the water is cold, and everybody in the house is cross!
It is not a matter to be treated lightly. Whatever burden there is to be borne falls more heavily upon the wife than upon the husband in the farmstead. If the farm is isolated, she is the loneliest person there. If there is poverty, she has the least to use or to spend. If there is lack of labor-saving devices, she has far fewer than the farmer has. ”

“ Yet what is the position of the mother in the New England farmer's home? The farmer is careful of every animal he possesses. The farm-yard and the stall are replenished with young, by creatures for months dismissed from labor, or handled with intelligent care while carrying their burden; because the farmer knows that only in this way can he secure improvement, and sound, symmetrical development, to the stock of his farm. ”

“ While wearing the dress of a lady, the wife cannot tuck up her sleeves and see to the butter, or even feed the poultry, which are down at the pen across 'a nasty dirty field.' It is easy to say that farming is gone to the dogs, that corn is low, and stock uncertain, and rents high, and so forth. All that is true, but difficulties are nothing new; nor must too much be expected from the land.
A moderate-sized farm, of from 200 to 800 acres, will no more enable the mistress and the misses to play the fine lady to-day than it would two generations ago. ”

“ Twenty-five acres of arable land, stretching to the south; a grand old barn, with dusty, cobwebbed, hay-filled lofts, stalls for two horses and five cows; hen houses, with plenty of room to carry out a long-cherished plan of starting a poultry farm. ”

“ Then, too, progressive farmers believe it to be economy to provide shelter for animals and [251] crops, manures and implements. The old custom of stacking the hay and grain, of allowing the farm animals to toughen in the winter’s blast in field and barnyard, and the manures to leach and bleach under the eaves of the building has, in part, been abandoned and better methods substituted. These new methods require better, larger, and more commodious farm barns. ”

“ Here and there an old black and white farm-house, with its rambling outbuildings, speaks of other times and other occupations than those which now absorb the population of the neighbourhood. Here in their seasons may be seen the country business of hay-making, ploughing, &c., which are such pleasant mysteries for townspeople to watch; and here the artisan, deafened with noise of tongues and engines, may come to listen awhile to the delicious sounds of rural life: the lowing of cattle, the milk-maids' call, the clatter and cackle of poultry in the old farm-yards. ”