Forty Years of Farm Management Surveys

Abstract

T WAS about forty years ago that farm management survey work, as well as other lines of farm management research, being initiated in the experiment stations of the United States. This about the time when the better agricultural areas were well on their way in the shift from self-sufficient to commercial agriculture. Although the first work in farm management surveys began about 40 years ago it may be of interest to consider somre of the earlier developments which led up to this work. Before 1900, agricultural research workers all over the country were beginning to think of going to the farms for some of their information. One of these workers L. H. Bailey of Cornell. In a lecture before the Training Conference for Rural Leaders at Cornell University in July 1911, Bailey spoke on Survey Idea in Country Life Work.' In this lecture he states that the survey idea at Cornell was really begun with a piece of work in 1890 that culminated in the publication of Bulletin 19, 'Report upon the Condition of Fruit-Growing in Western New York'. The early development of the survey idea is well explained in Bailey's lecture as follows: