Fee farm

“ Our population continues to increase by more than 20 per cent each decade, but all future possible additions to the farm lands of the United States amount to only 9 per cent of the present acreage, and most of this small addition requires expensive irrigation or drainage.
If it cost $4 an acre to raise corn, 5 cents a bushel to harvest and market the crop, 9 cents a bushel to maintain the fertility of the soil, and 1/2 per cent on the value of the land for taxes, then, if money is worth 5 per cent, land that produces 20 bushels of 40-cent corn is worth $21.81 an acre. ”

“ It is very frequently the same throughout the West, where so much that is raised upon a farm is valueless; and where, for even the grains, they have a market which barely pays the expense of living. The expense incurred in farming can be regulated by the profit of the crops; and where even no manure is required, the labor has to be expended, and crops in distant localities often fail to pay the expense of this labor. Where land will pay for a liberal cultivation, as well as fertilizing, it is much better, as a farmer must work his stock, and a certain amount of care is indispensable. ”

“ Except in special cases, as in truck farming, it is cheaper to purchase natural plant-food in the soil than artificial fertility. One acre of land may have potential plant-food sufficient under superior tillage for one hundred crops, while another unaided will yield but half as many, and yet the two pieces of land are often priced at the same figure. In other words, land [63] of high productive power is usually cheaper than land of low productive power. A good farm may be cheaper at $50 per acre than a poor one as a gift. ”

“ There machinery is introduced as far as possible, all work is methodically planned and executed, and wholesale rates in purchases and in transportation are secured. The result is that certain staple products, especially wheat, are raised at a cost far below the average cost to moderate farmers. The result is large profits upon the capital invested, in spite of the fact that such farms do not make best use of soil fertility and certainly do not maintain the best condition of soil for future use. ”

“ Such influences, even though dulled a bit by protective State and Federal farm programs, are putting a premium on specialization, ever larger farms, and an "agribusiness" approach, with high capital and operating expenses. Their effect on many family farms in the Basin's mountain regions, places with limited acreage of marginally productive land, is severe. ”

“ In this view, all taxes on farm servants, horses, or the implements of agriculture, are in reality land-taxes; the burden falling on the farmer during the currency of his lease, and on the landlord, when the lease comes to be renewed. In like manner all those improved implements of husbandry which save expense to the farmer, such as machines for threshing and reaping, whatever gives him easier access to the market, such as good roads, canals, and bridges, though they lessen the original cost of corn, do not lessen its market price. ”

“ The profit in farming lies first of all in securing large crop yields. It costs forty bushels of corn per acre in Illinois to raise the crop and pay the rent for the land or interest and taxes on the investment. With land worth $150 an acre, it will require $8 to pay the interest and taxes. Another $8 will be required to raise the crop and harvest and market it, even with very inadequate provision made for maintaining the productive power of the soil, such as a catch crop of clover, or a very light dressing of farm fertilizer. ”

“ On these farms there are only 15 acres per horse. On the largest farms, one horse farms three times this area, with no resulting decrease in crop yields.... When we consider the cost of keeping a horse we see what a great advantage the larger farms have.
Forces like these are counteracting what is commonly thought of as the normal tendency of agriculture to move toward more intensive cultivation on small farms, with the result that the average amount of improved farm land per farm actually increased instead of diminishing in the United States during the last decade. ”

“ But this idle earth takes a third of the year to mature its one single crop of pills; and so the agriculturist with his slow returns cannot compete with the quick returns of the tradesman and manufacturer. If he cannot compete, he cannot long exist; such is the modern law of business. As an illustration, take one large meadow on a dairy farm; trace its history for one year, and see what an idle workshop this meadow is. Call it twenty acres of first-class land at £2 15s. per acre, or £55 per annum. ”

“ The product of a field near his house and barn costs less exertion than the product of a more distant field. In the second place, he is likely to have chosen for his first efforts in crop raising the land most readily yielding its fertility in crops. If he extends his operations to less productive soil, he must work more for the same product. In the third place, if a certain amount of work upon a certain field will give him twenty bushels of wheat, he must give a good deal more than twice as much work in the way of tillage and manufactured fertilizer to make a crop of forty bushels. ”

“ This does not mean less intensive cultivation, in fact quite the contrary; it means more intensive cultivation, but by the efficient utilization of good machinery and of power. It means further, as said above, a demand for mortgage credit for the purpose of enlarging farms—and that, at rapidly increasing farm prices.
The farming population is becoming more settled now that the free lands are practically gone and the frontier has disappeared. ”

“ The annual interest is only a trifle. In some cases it is only a shilling a week, and it runs up to as high as a pound or two a week in special cases, the average being estimated at $59 a year for the 126,000 farms, or $5 a month for the purchase of a farm, and whatever improvements may happen to be upon the land. If these improvements are not adequate, if the house is not comfortable, and if barns, stables, fences, and other permanent improvements are needed, the government advances the money to provide for them upon the same terms,—sixty-eight annual payments of 31⁄4 per cent of the cost. ”

“ The farmer cannot be expected to pay for the privilege of losing several hundreds per annum by cultivation. Let Mr Watson's statement be examined, and it will appear that the enterprising and skilful tenant of a farm of five hundred acres, in the best corn district of Forfar, cannot clear his expenses unless the rent of the land is reduced by one-half, and, even if that were done, he could only realise a profit of sixpence per acre! ”

“ The handicap on free use of land imposed upon its owners by the compensation clauses of the Agriculture Act.
These obstacles do real harm, in the first place, because a very large proportion of farms in this country are the wrong size: too large for a man to work with his hands, and too much for him to work with his head, as Sir Thomas Middleton has well said. Figures show quite conclusively that whether you take production per acre or production per man, the farm of from 100 to 150 acres is economically the worst-sized unit. ”

“ Crops which require a large amount of labor can only be grown on very rich land. Our successful market-gardeners, seed-growers, and nurserymen understand this matter. They must get great crops or they cannot pay their labor bill. And the principle is applicable to ordinary farm crops. Some of them require much more labor than others, and should never be grown unless the land is 266 capable of producing a maximum yield per acre, or a close approximation to it. As a rule, the least-paying crops are those which require the least labor per acre. Farmers are afraid to expend much money for labor. ”

“ To augment the productive capacity of a given number of acres, that will now support in semi-starvation a given number of cows, to a point in fertility that will add 2,000 pounds of milk per annum to each cow, milk worth, say $20, is to have the funds in hand to pay the sum of $400 as interest on the added value to an ordinary farm of eighty acres that is made to well keep twenty cows, instead of keeping them in the usual way. Four hundred dollars will pay 5 per cent interest per annum on an added value of $100 per acre to the farm. This can be done without adding a cow to the herd. ”

“ What do you think may be the actual outlay per acre in money in carrying on the necessary operations of an average farm, irrespective of the price of grain? Why, not half a guinea per imperial acre; all other charges and expenses being regulated entirely and immediately by the prices of grain. The landlord is paid his rent generally in wheat. The labourers receive the bulk of their wages in the produce of the farm, grass for their cows, and specified quantities of the different kinds of grain. ”

“ Added to this outlay, large sums have been expended in boring wells, building reservoirs and establishing water stations on cattle and sheep ranges. Buying land from landowners controlling large tracts, obtained by devious means in the early stages of the country's development, is still another heavy national expense. This land, when allotted to small farm settlers, is leased. Leasing the land, instead of granting the freehold, does not augur for a rapid increase in the rural population. ”

“ The new agriculture vastly increased the produce of the land. During the first half of our period rents were low, and the farmers who carried out the new system as a rule made enormous profits. Arthur Young tells us of one Norfolk farmer who, on a farm of 1,500 acres, made enough in thirty years to buy an estate of £1,700 a year. The improved agriculture, however, could not be carried out without enclosure and, unless an award was made by agreement, that meant a large initial expense, which was followed by the expense of actually enclosing the land. ”

“ From another point of view, we may discover that inventive genius, has added a long list of labor-saving machinery, to the equipment of the farm. Since wheat growing, has become the leading crop, this expensive machinery must be included in the outfit of every successful farm. The burden of this expense, has proved too great for the capacity of the small farm. It has encumbered thousands of them with an indebtedness so hopeless, that its annual [Pg 392] interest swallows up the income of the farm. ”

“ The corn fodder, shredded by our own men and machine, made the great forage barn look like an overflowing cornucopia, and the only extra expense attending the harvest was $31 paid for threshing the oats.
Three important items of food are consumed on the farm that have to be purchased each year, and as there is not much fluctuation in the price paid, we may as well settle the per capita rate for the milch cows and hogs for once and all. At each year's end we can then easily find the cash outlay for the herds by multiplying the number of stock by the cost of keeping one. ”

“ But, paradoxical as it may seem, land values have increased while fertility and productiveness have decreased and, with shorter days for higher priced and less efficient farm labor, with more middlemen absorbing the profits between the producer and the consumer, it is now difficult indeed to buy land with borrowed money and pay for it from subsequent farm profits. ”

“ If the lands were under private control, the fees would be more than double what they now are. In New Mexico, for instance, the usual price for pasturing cattle upon the large land grants is from two dollars to three dollars a year, while on the government forests immediately adjoining the grant, and almost the same country, the fee is only seventy-five cents a year per head and twenty-five cents per head for sheep. And these are the highest fees charged on any national forest for all-the-year-round grazing permits. ”

“ Without the banks, the cultivator could not have had the first advances, nor the implements necessary for the cultivation of his farm, and if the credit system has given facilities for stock-jobbing to speculators, it has also enabled him, although indirectly, to buy at the rate of one, two, or three dollars an acre, and to cultivate lands, which are now, in his hands, worth tenfold or a hundred fold their first cost. ”

“ Our arid lands will be made fertile by irrigation, but they will add only a small percentage to the amount already in quasi-cultivation. Our future food supplies must be drawn largely from the six million farms now under fences. These farms must be made to yield fourfold their present product, or they will fall short, not only of the demands made upon them, but also of their possibilities. That is why I preach the gospel of intensive farming, for grain, hay, market, and factory farm alike. ”

“ Yet probably the fact is the same in both cases, that the owner of the land has his profits diminished by the actual amount of the tax. More strictly, the tax is taken from the rent of his land. In any case of over-production, when land gives no rent, the tax will be paid by the producer out of other income. So far, however, as farm products conform to the principle of cost of production in the tendency of prices, there will be a corresponding tendency to shift the tax upon the final consumer. ”

“ This is because the supply is kept up only by the exertion of the greater amount of labor as well as the less. If farmers in western prairie country can raise corn at an expense of 15 cents per bushel, as they can upon an average, so long as that region can raise all the corn required no less productive region can force the normal price above what will keep western farmers raising corn. When the western crop fails, the price is far above normal value, and may even go above the cost of the most costly corn in market, under a principle called the law of supply and demand. ”