Rural School Leaflet 



1301 



FARM MAPS AND FARM LAYOUT 

 G. F. Warren 



One of the most important problems in farm management is the 

 question of field arrangement. Most of the farms of New York were 

 laid out in the days of scythe and grain cradle. With hand tools, irregular 

 small fields were not so much of an obstacle as they are now that the 

 work is done with machinery. Many farms have been enlarged by the 

 purchase of more land. This also raises the question of farm layout, 

 for when two farms are combined there are usually twice too many fields. 



For farming purposes it is desirable that the fields should have square 

 corners and that they should be longer than they are wide. Permanent 

 pastures are most cheaply fenced when they are square. 



Nearly all farms can be laid out 



$ " 



S 





B 



in a better way than they are now. 

 On some farms stone walls, 

 streams, and other obstacles 

 prevent good arrangement, 

 but present conditions 

 can usually be im- 

 £* \ proved. In 



general, the 

 changes can- 

 y^r\cyy not be made at 



/ once. It is 



therefore necessary to make a farm plan, so that whenever changes are 

 made the owner will be working toward the ultimate plan. 



Exercises such as No. 4 and No. 5, given below, will do much to call 

 attention to the importance of this question. The work will be good 

 educational training for the children. The father should be consulted 

 so that he will be interested. The corrected map should be one that he 

 will accept as practical for conditions on the farm. 



263ft 



EXERCISES 



i. How many rods of fence will it take to inclose a square field of one 

 acre? How many rods to inclose a square field containing forty acres? 

 How many rods is this per acre? 



2. If the repairs and the depreciation on fence and posts cost five 

 cents per rod each year, what will be the cost per acre each year to keep 

 the one-acre field fenced? The forty-acre field? 



3 . In order to determine the influence of length of the grounds and shape 



of the field on cost of plowing, fields A, B, and C were plowed with a 

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