The Bulletin. 61 



If the pig weighs only 50 pounds, use half the amount of cottonseed meal and 

 one-half of the copperas solution. 



Reorgauizing the Farm. 



J. M. JOHNSON. 



A system of management which will give greater returns for labor and 

 capital invested in farming in the Piedmont section of the South is needed. 

 It is the western half of North Carolina in which this paper takes greatest 

 interest. It is the agriculture in the section extending westward from the 

 main line of the Seaboard Air Line Railway that shall be considered. In 

 this section, according to the figures given in the 1910 census, the average 

 farm grew crops annually to the value of $457.00. A study of farm soils, 

 farm equipment, including implements and work stock, and of methods and 

 practices in tillage, convinces one that the yields and values of the crops 

 grown should be much higher than those represented in the census report. 

 When the facts that one-third of the land classified as improved farm land is 

 doing absolutely nothing in the line of growing valuable crops, and that only 

 about one-fifth of the area under tillage gives annual harvests worth $20.00 

 or more per acre, while the crops on two-fifths are worth only $12.00 per 

 acre and on two-fifths the crops are worth less than $8.50 per acre, is con- 

 sidered, the importance of a better system is recognized. 



This system should give more acres of the crops of high value and fewer 

 of those of lower. It should not eliminate crops already grown success- 

 fully; neither should it depend upon the introduction of new or untried ones. 

 It should contain nothing of a doubtful nature. It should if possible offer 

 opportunity of utilizing 100 per cent of the improved land in crop growing 

 and in many cases perhaps make farming profitable enough to justify the 

 clearing up or reclaiming good lands now in woods and thus make the farms 

 large enough to allow of improved methods of tillage and so forth. The 

 system should allow the average work animal kept on these farms to do 

 more days of profit-bearing work per year than at the present. 



In order that such a system of management and reorganization may be sug- 

 gested it may be well to review conditions and practices as existing in 1909 

 and as yet practically unmodified throughout the Piedmont area. 



For careful study we shall take the four counties, Chatham, Randolph, 

 Davidson and Rowan, constituting the heart of western North Carolina, and 

 having the soil and climatic conditions peculiar to the great stretch of Pied- 

 mont country from Virginia southward. The value of crops per farm in 

 these counties is about 5% per cent above the average for the Piedmont 

 section of the State. Some farmers are making good profits, while others ar? 

 losing money and a great many are practically meeting expenses, but return- 

 ing no profits. 



The lessons drawn from this study will be applicable in the western half 

 of North Carolina, and, the writer believes, in the Piedmont section of the 

 southeast. 



In Chatham County in 1909 there were 3,646 farms with an average of 

 33.8 acres of improved land and 70.8 acres of unimproved land per farm; 

 23.3 acres of the improved land was planted to crops. These crops were 

 worth $439.00 per farm. Ten acres of improved land per farm was uncultiva- 

 ted. The cultivated land grew crops to the value of $18.85 per acre. Had 

 the 10 acres of improved land which was not planted been occupied in grow- 

 ing crops of only average value, the income on each farm should have been 

 increased $188.50, or for the county, $687,271.00. 



On the farms in the county were 5,301 work horses and mules. This is an 

 average of 1.45 head of work stock for each farm, or one work animal for 

 each 16 acres in crops. Had the entire 33.3 acres been planted there would 

 have been one work animal for every 22.9 acres to be cared for. 



