ORGANIZATION OF THE FARM 



the most to the farmer's net profit and should 

 introduce as many non-competing crops into the 

 field-system as will add sufficient to his net profit 

 to pay him for his trouble. When this principle 

 is followed it will often happen that of two non- 

 competing crops in the field-system, one will yield 

 a larger net profit than the other. Yet when the 

 year's accounts are balanced, it will be found that 

 the total net profit of the farmer is greater when 

 both crops are cultivated than when but the one 

 is grown, even if the one is less profitable than 

 the other, for each crop represents the most prof- 

 itable use to which the labor, horses, tools and 

 machinery can be put at the given time, and if 

 not used in that way they must be put to a less 

 productive use or to no use at all. 



But of two competing crops, only the more 

 profitable one should be produced. Take maize 

 and sugar beets, for example, in that part of the 

 United States where the sugar-beet region lies 

 within the "corn belt." Indian corn and beets 

 require the attention of the farmer at the same 

 time of year and if the one crop increases the 

 other must decrease. Hence beets must here 

 prove equally profitable, that is they must add as 

 much as maize to the farmer's total net profit, 

 before they can be cultivated without loss. The 

 beets may yield the larger net profit per acre, and 

 yet prove less profitable to the farmer because he 

 cannot operate so many acres of beets as of 



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