ORGANIZATION OF THE FARM 



tage and then select the grade of land and capital- 

 goods, suited to that branch of agriculture, which 

 correspond to his degree of qualitative efficiency 

 as a producer in that branch of the industry, for 

 such a choice will enable him to win the largest 

 net profit. 



Section II. The selection of crops and the 

 organisation of the -field-system. When the land 

 is selected on which the farmer is to carry on his 

 agricultural operations, the next important ques- 

 tion which arises pertains to the selection of the 

 crops which are to find a place in the field-system. 

 The Roman agricultural writer, Pliny the elder, 

 quotes a maxim which was said to have been 

 handed down from the ancients, to the effect that 

 he is a bad farmer indeed who will buy anything 

 which he can produce upon his own farm. 1 But 

 Albrecht Thaer, the leading German agriculturist 

 of one hundred years ago, and perhaps the great- 

 est agriculturist Germany has produced, taught 

 the farmers of his generation to produce nothing 

 for themselves which they could to better advan- 

 tage purchase upon the market. 2 The maxim 

 quoted by Pliny points towards the self-sufficing 

 economy of early times when the goal of the hus- 

 bandman was the direct satisfaction of all the 



1 Bohn's Classical Library, Natural History of Pliny, Vol. 

 IV, p. 16; also Dickson's Husbandry of the Ancients, Vol. 

 I, p. 208. 



2 Wilhelm Korte, Albrecht Thaer, Sein Leben und Wirken, 

 als Arzt und Landwirth, pp. 102-103. 



