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Show BUSINESS PITFALLS IN FARM DISTRICTS Bankers Point Out Hazards cf Unsound Practices and Help Farmers to Avoid Them. i 117 AYS in which bankers may discour- age unsound farm practices are de-' de-' scribed by President F. D. Farrell of the Kansas State Agricultural College in the American Bankers Association Journal. He says: "In Kansas in connection with the Importation of dairy cattle, a large shipment of very inferior animals came Into a county to be sold at -auction to local farmers. The county agricultur-I agricultur-I al agent informed the bankers that the cattle would be a detriment to the community. The bankers refused to finance the purchase of the cattle aud the sale was abandoned. The cattle were shipped to another count'. The county agent and the bankers there did as was done in the first instance and the second county escaped. "A year ago creamery promoters began be-gan trying to capitalize the Kansas farmers' desire to improve his markets by inducing communities of farmers to purchase creamery plants before production and local conditions justified justi-fied them. Informed o this by the State Agricultural College, the bank-; bank-; ers association sent warnings to every bank in the state, leading many to refuse re-fuse to support the creamery promoters promot-ers until the college approved the plant for the community concerned. This saved many communities loss from the premature establishment of plants. "A third way bankers can discourage unsound practices i3 to refuse to finance fin-ance farmers who wish to pyramid their enterprises, a temptation difficult to resist. re-sist. This is illustrated among farmers farm-ers who buy cattle for feeding purposes. pur-poses. A farmer feeds two or three cars of cattle one year and makes a good profit. Thi3 induces him to buy twice or three times as many the second sec-ond year, still more the third and so on until he finally loses more by having too many cattle on feed in a year of bad prices than he made in several previous years with smaller numbers and better prices. When bankers discourage dis-courage bad practices their action Is a positive benefit to the farmers concerned." |