Buying A Farm

how are you sir are you sir I am John Smith from Ireland 2 Lakeland I wrote to you recently about buying a farm are you suggested that I'd come in and talk them out over thoroughly with you I remember your letter very well Mr Smith you said you had seven thousand dollars with no strings on it and that you had Farm experience a few years back yes I stayed home following School the for about eight years I worked in industry for about 10 years but my wife she comes from the farm too and see that we have three boys there we think the farm is the best place to raise them well now this is all very interesting and we have many people in the course of a year write to us and come to our offices for this kind of a problem usually though great many of them do not have the amount of money that you have and they don't just have the right kind of experience either great many of them have no Farm experience but in your case I think you have enough money and the proper kind of experience now we have a few pictures we'd like to show them to you this Farm is for sale two houses excellent Barn fertile soil thirty thousand dollars might buy this property but it is not for the beginner in parts of Ontario perimeter areas especially cities are encroaching on many farms here this huge plant is established on good farm land more Farmland which is being held for speculation is on the best indicate the barn is down and this field of Goldenrod has been there for the past three years Farmers move back and buy other land but we will hope they will not buy land as low as this the soil is low-lying and the drainage is very poor in this particular area the land will just not put up enough productivity in the way of crops to support the area someone has built a barn which he will take a long time paying for on soil like this it is a mistake that operators sometimes make one can see the land is low and the general error of decrepitness pervades the whole community roads are not adequately surfaced from where you find this you generally find a land area which is a good one to stay away from if you're thinking of purchasing a farm this Farm might grow Christmas trees and little else this is a good useful Barn the young couple who are on this Farm have been successfully farming this land for several years the house is not the best in the world but this husband and wife are making an excellent job of producing income and paying off debt on this fertile 175 Acres of not too high priced lands the roads are good church is not too far from the Farm Lane services are easily arranged schools are a necessary thing for growing families and the school is as a matter of fact on the corner of this young couple's Farm the community is a good one buildings all around the countryside are in good repair the soil is very fertile well drained and the outside fences of these farms are in good shape this tractor is doing the last job of plowing in the fall of the year a few final points would be fertile soil useful buildings they're outside fences a never feeling well and of course a short Lane and I spoke about these all-weather roads and the churches and schools and good community centers Mr Smith if I were you I would always try to buy a farm that will increase in value all right sir thank you very much I'm very glad you came in Perfect all right Don I was born and raised in a firm after I left school I worked for my father on The Firm did you uh own your own Farm I did the last number of years that I found previously to that I rented My Father's Farm for five years and uh when did you uh leave the farm I left the farm in 1958. now uh could you give us the main reasons why you decided to give up farming uh well done my main reason was physical I developed some back trouble I was unable to do full day's work and as a result it ended in financial stress and I was forced to sell my firm you were operating as a one-man Farm you didn't have fired help that is correct and what about your son was he interested in farming as a career or did this contribute to your decision too uh my son was not interested in The Firm uh had he been interested I might have possibly continued as unfirm because the man who had only gone to high school until he was 16 didn't have any other training besides farming did you find much difficulty in getting a job when you left the farm certain types of employment were difficult to obtain although selling jobs which would be commissioned were very easily had that is what I started known as why didn't you stay with this kind of work while income was too uh fluctuate fluctuated quite a bit it was a little bit like farming perhaps and how did you come to take up the work you're now doing I was fortunately knowing uh the supervisor in one of our local supermarkets and I was given employment there as a meat cutter you've had this job for uh several years how do you compare a farming and non-farming occupations well the labor is not as sinuous of course in the job and we know however there's a certain satisfaction in your own doing your own work and so forth you had perhaps more opportunity for community activities in the country than you find in the city yes Don that is right uh for this reason that I feel there was a greater need for it in rural areas we're seeing uh now how about income uh income at the present time uh you're restricted to what you can earn because of the restricted hours whereas on a farm if you have a large enough operation and certain lines of farming there is no restriction to your income but on the other hand in your presence of employment you know exactly how much you'll be making yes that's right down and then what about the security and pension plans I suppose your present uh job would have this sort of thing I guess we are having contributory pension plan and at a certain age retirement age why we will be given a certain income wondering about your family's reaction to this change first of all how many of the family do you have Bruce we have three girls and one boy well how did they like the idea of leaving the farm and how do they like City life now well they like city of Life very well the girls didn't seem to need too much adjustment of course my son being the oldest I have a lot of things that he missed on the firm and uh I think putting in his time here in the beginning was his biggest problem uh there probably isn't as much difference between living in the country in the city nowadays as there used to be no there there isn't uh don we had all the convenience on the firm that we have in the city as far as the actual living conditions go I can't see any difference no I think this is so nowadays finally Bruce I just like to ask you for your comment or any observation you'd like to make for a young person who's considering farming as a career done I believe there is a definite future for a young couple on a farm today providing they will have sufficient Financial backing that they could go into specialized farming and I feel that there would be a could be a real income in a specialized line