544 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



STEPS IX AGKICULTUKAL DEVELOPMENT. 



In order clearly to comprehend our present position, it is necessary to 

 review briefly the logical steps in agricultural development. In the set- 

 tlement of a new region the pioneer farmer brings with him seeds of those 

 crops he cultivated in his former home and the live stock he deems nec- 

 essary in his new situation. In a few years he has learned which of these 

 crops are best adapted to the new environment of soil, climate, and mar- 

 ket facilities. Then follows the rapid development of a type of farming 

 based on one or two crops for which there is a cash market.* The new 

 soil is rich, and for one or two generations is believed to be inexhaust- 

 ible. It is therefore exploited of its fertility and a general change of 

 system is instituted only when waning yields begin to bring failure to the 

 less progressive element in the community. When this period is reached 

 a new problem arises. Single-crop farming requires little capital. A 

 dwelling, a few work stock and a modest shelter for them, a little fenc- 

 ing, and a moderate equipment of farm implements represent the neces- 

 sary capital of the grain farmer in addition to his investment in land, 

 and the last has usually been a gift from a generous nation. 



DIFFICULTIES IX CHAXGIXG TYPES OF FARMING. 



To change to a more conservative type of farming requires large ex- 

 penditures for new equipment. Money must be invested in live stock, new 

 buildings must be erected, fences built where none were needed before, 

 and new types of machinery must be bought. Recent studies by this De- 

 partment indicate that on well-organized stock farms in the Middle West 

 the amount invested in farm buildings, exclusive of the farm dwelling, 

 amounts on the average to $9.27 per acre for the whole farm, while the 

 cost of fences represents $4.60 per acre. These two items alone, there- 

 fore, represent an outlay of about $2,220 on a 160-acre farm. The major 

 part of this expediture must be met when the farm changes from grain 

 growing to stock farming. The investment in live stock itself on a farm 

 represents another sum nearly as large as the above. In addition, more 

 labor is required, and this labor must be more intelligent and more reliable 

 Hence the change from an exploitive to a conservative type of farming is 

 at best a gradual one, and requires unusual resourcefulness on the part 

 of the farming population. 



EXPLOITIVE FARMING TOO LONG CONTINUED. 



It is not strange, therefore, that in many communities exploitve farm- 

 ing continues beyond its legitimate life. In fact, such a change could 

 hardly proceed in the older settled states while the unbounded West of- 

 fered the renter and the farm laborer the opportunity to acquire a home by 



*In regions where transportation facilities are not favorable some form of live- 

 stock farming is usually followed until transportation lines are open, but in new 

 regions the manure from the stock is ordinarily not made use of, so that the keep- 

 ing' of the live stock is of no importance from the standpoint of the maintenance 

 of soil fertility. TVhere transportation facilities are available, the development 

 of an exploitive type of grain farming is coincident with settlement. 



