Meeting with Mac McGowan at McKee and Mcfarland

25-aug-2010  Met with Mac McGowan at McKee and McFarland yesterday about Bachelor farm (509 acres - price $1,030,516 or $2025 per acre)) in Haywood county TN, and Feathers Chapel Rd farm (370 acres - price $1,333,800 or $3605 per acre) near Somerville.  Got a lot of info from Mac and from Terry McFarland.  Terry said that the 2 row picker which came out in 1946 changed everything.  Whereas there used to be 1,000 people living on 5,000 acres of farmland, and they were all needed, now there needed to be only about 200 people.  So 800 people were "kicked to the curb".  He said farmers did not want to pay to retrain these people (white or black) and said that it was not their problem.  But the problem came back to haunt them and their children in the form of welfare society, high crime, and blighted areas.

According to McGowan, annual farm rent for Bachelor farm is $16,000.  Hunting rent is $3,000.  So total annual income for Bachelor farm is $19,000.  Bachelor farm has 114 crop acres out of the total 509 acres.  This rent sounds a little high because Bill Carwell told me that farm land rents in the range of $85 to $135 per acre per year.  At $100 per acre, the rent for Bachelor farm would be 114 acres x $100 = $11,400.  

Feathers Chapel farm has 162 crop acres out of total 370.  McGowan said farm rent income for that farm was $16,000 to $18,000 per year.  Hunting rent income was $3700 per year.  This farm income is more in line with what Bill Carwell said (162 acres x approx $100 per acre = $16,200).


Terry said that a farmer needed to farm at least 5,000 acres to be able to justify the purchase of all the equipment.  If you farm less, you would have to get by with old used equipment.  So a farmer that leases 100 acres from someone would probably be leasing another 4900 acres or more from other landlords.

Terry said that the new technology allows planting to go 24 hours per day, because light is not needed anymore.  This takes a lot of risk out of farming.  If it rains during planting, you cannot go into fields to plant.  You have to wait.  So in the old days, rain caused delays.  It still causes delays, but since you can plant around the clock, you can get your crop planted much quicker so chance of rain delay is much less.

Mac said that perhaps the best irrigation method is "flood" irrigation.  You grade your field to have a slight fall and then you roll out tubes of plastic which are almost like garbage bags in appearance and thickness.  Tubes have holes in them to let water out all along distance.  You run the tube on high side of field and water runs down entire field to irrigate it.

Terry advised me to buy only farmland east of Crowley's ridge and south of what he calls the "second shelf" which is the big bluff which can be seen near horn lake.  He said this area has good water at around 80 to 100 feet deep.  Other areas have water problems.  The water at this depth comes from aquifers which are ABOVE the artesian water which memphis is famous for.