148 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



The larger area brings increased risk as well as increased opi)ortunity. 

 Before buying more land one nuist consider his desires and his ability. 



Best size of farm. — For greatest efficiency, a farm should be large 

 enough to fully employ at least two men the entire year. One man is 

 at a great disadvantage in many farm operations, and in case of sick- 

 ness or other emergencies the disadvantage is still greater. 



For general farming these figures show that a farm should con- 

 tain at least 150 acres. The upper limit of area is" determined chiefly 

 by the layout. With ideal conditions, with the buildings in the center 

 of the farm, and with a public road running past the buildings, as high 

 as 600 acres may be run from one center. With more than this area, 

 the distance of the fields from the buildings is usually too great. It is 

 not often that one can secure so large an area well located with respect 

 to buildings. The most profitable general farms in Tompkins and 

 Livingston counties contain about 200 to 300 acres of good land. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF CLOVER IN CORN BELT ROTATIONS. 



(J. A. Drake, office of Farm Management, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. Mr. Drake was 



a Missouri Farmers' Week Spealier. ) 



Perhaps there is no section of the country 

 where a permanent and well arranged rotation is 

 of so great importance to the maintenance of the 

 most profitable system of agriculture as in the corn 

 belt section, of which a large part of Missouri forms 

 an important part. In conneation with the kind 

 of farming carried out on the better class of farms, 

 the crops that are grown, and the live stock kept, 

 such a rotation is well-nigh indispensable. The 

 yields, by ordinary methods of farming, cannot well 

 J. A. Drake. j^g ]^gp^ ^p^ much less increased, without it; and 



especially is it essential in the continuance of high yields of corn, per- 

 haps the most imj^ortant and most valuable general farm crop that can 

 be grown on the average farm. The disastrous effects of growing corn 

 continuously on the same field for a period of years without some special 

 arrangements for heavy manuring, growing rye, etc., is beginning to be 

 quite well understood. Experiments have shown that a mere alternating 

 of the crops, corn and oats, through a period of years will increase the 

 yield of corn about one-half over that of one crop grown continuously 

 through the same period, while the addition of clover, making a three- 



