ONE CROP MORE PROFITABLE IN FUTURE
Follette, Belle Case La
One Crop More Profitable In Future Dr. W. J. Spillman Of Department Of Agriculture In New Book Says Corn Crop Acreage Ceased To Expand Since 1912 By BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE FARM MANAGEMENT—(W. J....
...He points out that the acreage of corn ceased to expand in 1912...
...Otherwise too large a proportion of the rural population would necessarily consist of farm laborers with little hope of ever owning farm homes of their own...
...Of the five great crops already mentioned, cotton is excluded from New England by climatic conditions...
...It is not altogether a misfortune, according to Dr...
...ONE KIND OF INDEPENDENCE...
...Against Radical Changes ATTEMPTS to make radical changes in the types of farming prevailing in any region are likely to be disastrous unless those engaged in such attempts understand pretty fully just what conditions are necessary for success with the various crops and farm animals...
...Likewise discussion of the status and future of the poultry and sheep industries is most interesting and informing...
...Since that time the demand for corn and the products of this crop, mainly meat and dairy products, has gone right on growing...
...Not that New England is an exceptionally good hay region, nor is the quality of New England hay as good as that of many other regions, but these six states have a virtual monopoly on the fresh milk trade of many large cities...
...Changes of type do occur, but only under the stress of changed conditions...
...This is a matter of great importance to beginners with small capital...
...The great majority of American farms are one and two man farms...
...One fact emphasized by the author is that the average percentage income of the farmer's working capital—his Investment in tools and implements, work stock, and other kinds of farm animals—is, on the average about four and one-half times that on the real estate investment...
...New England is probably already growing about all the fruit and vegetables she can market under present conditions, but as her cities grow the area of these crops will doubtless expand, and should do so...
...The big problem of farm management relates to farming based on these five crops...
...The other is that there are relatively few men with sufficient capital and executive ability to manage with profit a farm business larger than this...
...This leaves, the major portion of the crop area to hay...
...These features may at first glance cause the average person to think it is a scientific treatise and work of reference, but closer reading convinces us that it is as valuable and necessary for the bookshelves of the farmers as for the schools and libraries of the nation...
...The author is mathematically inclined and has discovered a mathematical formula for the law of diminishing returns, about which economists have so much to say...
...Naturally tenants who do not expect to make permanent homes in a community ilo not...
...Spillman has made this material so far as it relates to fattvi management available as a text book for students of farming...
...About 70% of the crop area in this region is in hay...
...Rented farms usually run down...
...The impelling reasons for this change are the inherent desire to own homes, the fact that money invested in land is likely to increase in value and constitutes a safe heritage for the family...
...THE Boston Transcript has-been fined $100 for refusing to print as an advertisement a report of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage commission...
...J. Spillman, D. Sc...
...The commission had found that the L. P. Hollander Co...
...men are able to accumulate enough to permit the ownership of a farm larger than the two-man size...
...Tenants Become Owners MOST tenants, however, as soon as they have accumulated enough capital to maintain a decent standard of living pass over into the owner class...
...Spillman, "deals with the business aspects of farming, as opposed to its technical aspects...
...These five major crops together occupy 88% of our crop area...
...Hence New England does not even gfdw sufficient grains to feed her dairy cows and poultry...
...The Transcript would not print the statement including these facts about the Hollander firm...
...as when the boll-weevil compelled many farmers to quit growing cotton and to embark in livestock farming, with very poor preparation for it too...
...Fruit in New England FRUITS and vegetables occupy relatively more acreage in New England than in other sections, except vegetables in New Jersey and fruits in California, because of the presence of many large centers of population that must be fed...
...It is not a mere whim that the production of beef and pork is largely centered in those sections where corn is abundant and cheap...
...One is that the profit in farming is so small that few...
...Dairying is also important and growing more important in the western mountain and coast states, in that case mainly because the higtfi cost of transportation to the great market centers make it necessary for farmers to produce products of high value per pound...
...The factors that control types of farming of all the other sections of the country are discussed in the same thorough fashion...
...This incident followTs hard on the refusal by two Detroit papers, the News and the Free Press, to'print advertisements of the issue of The Nation containing an article on Why Henry Fwd Should Not Be President.—World Tomorrow...
...One Crop Farming IT WILL interest corn-belt farmers to know that the author thinks their one great crop will be more profitable in the future than it has in been in the past...
...The author deals with the problems confronting the beginner with small capital, and shows how such problems are generally solved...
...SPILLMAN has been a student of American farming for nearly a third of a century, most of that time in connection with the United States Department of Agricul- ture...
...But in the very nature of the case they cannot occupy any large proportion of the, area now devoted to hay...
...Orange Judd Publishing Co., N. Y.) DR...
...Unless these farms can be made profitable there is no hope of making the business profitable to the great majority of those engaged in it...
...These men, in 1912, made an average net income of $521...
...The status of all the leading crops as farm enterprises, the position of each in the agriculture of the various sections of the country is made clear...
...failed to come up to a standard minimum wage for women of $9 a week for beginners, $11 for those of some experience, and $14 for experienced workers...
...This represents the income they received for their capital and labor...
...There are two reasons for this, according to our author...
...The cows that produce this milk can consume large quantities of low grade hay, and make it profitable...
...American farming is in the main based on them...
...Nothing else will stand the cost of transportation to market...
...Nineteen others in this group were still renters...
...But the commission has no power to enforce its findings except by advertising the names of employers who refuse to pay the wage it finds necessary for decent living...
...On the average the farms they were working contained 147.3 acres, and their net income averaged $1,574...
...While the author is not hopeful as to the possibilities of securing co-operation, he points out how the desired results could be accomplished if farmers would get together and act together for their own good and for the general welfare...
...They were thus able to farm four times as large an area, and even after paying rent their incomes were three times as great as in the case of those who had invested their small capital in land...
...He has had the opportunity to familiarize himself with farming in all parts of,the country, and has a practical and scientific knowledge of his subject seldom met with...
...Such overplanting often occurs in years when prices are high at planting time...
...Dairying has developed strongly along the northern edge of the corn belt where the long winters render some kind of winter employment imperative, and where cheap grain is not generally available for meat production...
...wheat and oats, and the same may be said of barley and rye, cpnnot be grown commercially on small, often rocky, hillside fields, where the harvesting is often a hand operation, in competition with the broad, level fields in the west where modern labor saving machinery can be used...
...This reduces the productive power of the land and affects the welfare of the nation adversely...
...The acreage of corn is greatly limited by the same factor...
...The book has a great many tables and statistics...
...But crops of this class all told occupy only 3.6% of our total crop area...
...A plan is outlined whereby the growers of such crops can remedy this difficulty by suitable co-operation...
...It is good government policy to encourage any movement tending toward ownership, says Dr...
...In the last two decades there has been a vast amount of research and a great accumulation of invaluable data on the subject of farming...
...Farm Management," says Dr...
...The safety of the nation rests on home ownership says the author...
...Five Major Crops COTTON, corn, wheat, oats, and hay each occupy over thirty million acres of land in this country, while no other crop occupies as much as eight million acres...
...It is not concerned with questions of nutrition that arise in the feeding of cows, but it is concerned with whether cows should constitute one of the enterprises on which the business of the farm is based, the size of the enterprises, and the quality of the cows in so far as the profitableness of the enterprise depends on this fac-otr...
...take the same interest in schools, churches, roads as do the farmers who own their land...
...As a result the price of corn has just about doubled since the acreage quit expanding...
...The author points out in the case of small acreage crops like flax, broomcorn, potatoes, and the like, that it is easy to plant more of them than can be marketed...
...Thus, of fifty-two Chester County, Pa., farmers having a capital of $3,000 to $5,000, thirty-three have bought farms averaging 37.1 acres in area...
...Thus, it does not deal with how to grow corn, but with whether to grow this crop, what acreage of it, the «ost of growing it, and the returns from it...
...At the same time he has written a book full of practical information and suggestion for the every-day farmer...
...Spillman, that most farms are not larger than good sized family farms...
...The author assigns good reasons for the very one-sided farming found in New England...
Vol. 16 • January 1924 • No. 1
