The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

SEASONAL INDUSTRIES
The next paragraph recognizes that seasonal industries, such as agricul-
ture, are enormously wasteful of cycle time, and that the farmers of Ford’s 
era spent much of their time waiting for things to grow. There is mean-
while little that farmers can do during winter. Ford’s solution was to place 
a valve plant in a rural area so “farmer-industrialists” could make engine 
valves when they would otherwise be idle. Another solution that might 
be achievable with modern technology is to farm with climate-controlled 
greenhouses or hydroponic facilities that make agriculture independent of 
weather, and, therefore, able to produce food year-round.
* * *
The start toward the stabilization of his own affairs may be made by any one. 
One cannot achieve perfect results acting alone, but as the example begins 
to sink in there will be followers, and thus in the course of time we can hope 

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Why Not Always Have Good Business?  •  117
to put inflated business and its fellow, depressed business, into a class with 
small-pox—that is, into the class of preventable diseases. It is perfectly pos-
sible, with the reorganization of business and finance that is bound to come 
about, to take the ill effect of seasons, if not the seasons, out of industry, and 
also the periodic depressions. Farming is already in process of reorganiza-
tion. When industry and farming are fully reorganized they will be comple-
mentary; they belong together, not apart. As an indication, take our valve 
plant. We established it eighteen miles out in the country so that the workers 
could also be farmers. By the use of machinery farming need not consume 
more than a fraction of the time it now consumes; the time nature requires 
to produce is much larger than that required for the human contribution of 
seeding, cultivating, and harvesting; in many industries where the parts are 
not bulky it does not make much difference where they are made. By the aid 
of water power they can well be made out in farming country. Thus we can, 
to a much larger degree than is commonly known, have farmer-industrialists 
who both farm and work under the most scientific and healthful conditions. 
That arrangement will care for some seasonal industries; others can arrange 
a succession of products according to the seasons and the equipment, and 
still others can, with more careful management, iron out their seasons. A 
complete study of any specific problem will show the way.