Farming, Saturday, Ai
Small family farms may
not be very profitable, but
there sure are a lot of people
who would like to have one.
I’m talking about young
men and women who would
like to operate their own
farming units, perhaps
starting as sharecropper or
renter and eventually
becoming owners. It’s part
of the great American
dream, and even though it’s
infinitely more difficult to
get started than it was a
generation or two ago, it’s
still being done. Often
enough to provide en
couragement for some
would-be farmers.
In the pre-World War II
penod a young man with a
strong back and a good team
of mules could get a start. He
would become a
sharecropper, work hard,
build his reputation, save his
money, and eventually move
on to his own place.
Glenn Hawkins was that
kind of a guy. He
snarecropped my grand
father’s farm in Missouri
after the old man got too
tired to manage it. That was
back in the thirties. Glenn
came to the place with a
truckful of furniture and a
team of horses.
Ten years later he made a
down payment on the ad
joining farm and retired a
few years ago a fairly
wealthy man. Not only had
he been a successful farmer,
but he happened to have
purchased a farm on the
edge of a small city that
eventually became worth at
least a million dollars.
Those kind of rags-to
nches opportunities don’t
come along every day, but
they are out there.
For instance, a Clarion
County, Pennsylvania
farmer I heard about
recently is looking for
someone to lease his place.
He has a heart condition and
no obvious heirs to the farm
business. So he’s willing to
lease to the right young
family 136 acres that he
called the best farm in the
county.
It also includes the option
to lease an additional 300
acres that belong to a coal
company. The place is set up
to handle dairy cattle and
includes everything but the
cattle. And the owner is even
willing to defer lease
payments for six months to a
year to help a young farm
family get started.
What more could a
potential tanner ask for?
Really, what this fellow is
saying is that be wants to
step down from his active
role and help a young family
get started. He wants to keep
the land, at least for the time
being, and also enjoy some
income from it.
The lessor would still need
equipment, livestock and
operating capital. That’s a
lot in today’s farm economy,
but it’s not insurmountable,
especially to someone who’s
already in a family farm
business and looking to go it
'Hst 30,1950
Farm
Talk
Jerry Webb
alone. Or to a young family
that’s been working for
someone else for wages and
who has the ability and
perhaps some savings.
That’s just one opportunity
of many that must be out
there. I know that every
farmer approaching
retirement age doesn’t have
an heir apparent to the
farming business.
The right young man or
woman with potential should
be able to fmd these opor
tumties.
Like everything else, f 'jrm
financing is difficult to ob
tain, but that’s not to say
that the business of farming
has to be handed over to the
conglomerates or the Wall
Street investors. Family
farms can continue if their
operators or potential
operators acre hardworking,
trustworthy, and a little
crative m their approach to
getting started or to hanging
m there.
I see stones all the tune m
the farm press about far
mers who are making it on a
few acres. They’re diver
sifying, intensifying, double
and triple cropping, com
bining hogs and
strawberries, chickens and
fruit trees, and all sorts of
strange combinations to get
the manmnm dollar return
from their investment.
The potential farmer who
wants to grow com and
soybeans is probably looking
at the most difficult way of
all to get into fanning. He’s
looking to start at a level
that requires an investment
and a risk far beyond most
young people’s abilities.
If the desire to farm is
limited only to com and
soybeans, then I would say
the young man or woman
seeking entry is in for a
difficult time. But it that
beginner is willing to do
some other things like dairy
cows, fresh vegetables, pick
your-own fruit trees, bogs, or
maybe even sheep, then
there is some hope for
getting started and some
chance of success.
It used to be that almost all
farmers diversified. That old
saying about all the eggs in
one basket applied par
ticularly well to farmers.
Those who weathered the
difficult years of the thirties
were very reluctant to limit
their activities to one or two
crops. Instead, they had
some of everything. So when
beef prices were down,
maybe the hogs would cover
their loss. Or when wheat
was m surplus, com would
pay the bills.
Some farmers stick
doggedly to that philosophy,
claiming even yet that
diversity has allowed them
to grow and prosper.
Other farmers have opted
for specialization. On the
Delmarva peninsula, that
has meant corn and
soybeans and lots of acres,
with good production and
price years more than
making up for the bad ones.
That’s a higher risk business
with more capital
requirements.
Some farmers who made
big expansion moves in the
early to mid-seventies know
very well the lesson from
that kind of optimism. What
looked like the beginning of a
great agricultural boom
triggered expansion and
caused record farm
machinery sales. But that
boom soon turned to bust,
and those same farmers
found themselves riding
those new tractors to
a
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out forage for sure, no-stall unloading
FICKES SILO COMPANY, INC.
t&uue-
BOTTOM UNLOADEKS
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CITY
Dove season to
open September 1
t - Penn- to take twelve doves daily
sywSThBMl hunting tog. year, mth a mMimum
sLsons will eet underway on possession limit of 24 after
thTfirst day of the season.
KS?tS£st chance The daily limit on gallinules
at doves gallmulesandtwo is fifteen, with no more than
sn^iesofrails 30 “ possession after the
S Ch2g starts as 12 first day of the season,
o’clock noon and concludes Both the
at sunset daily, while possession tune
shooting hours for sora and on sora and Virginia r
Virginia rails and gallinules are 25, singly or m the
ruifrom one-half hour aggregate of
before sunrise until sunset. This year there will again
Hunters will again be able no open season on kmgand
clapper rails m Penn
sylvania.
Hunters are not permitted
to use shot size larger than
BB for taking migratory
game birds, under Game
Commission regulations.
Washington in an effort to
get them paid for.
A famer need look no
further than recent livestock
prices to see the advantage
of diversified production.
P.O. Box?
Newville, PA 17241
Phone: 717-776-3129
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STATE
Tough tungsten tipped
knives slash thru tangled
or frozen forage to move
out the volume you set on
controls Floor-track
gear drive at outer end of
auger means positive,
no-stall unloading Laidig
design and ruggedness
prevents many break
downs and repair costs
often associated with
other bottom unloaders
Insist on a Laidig
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33
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