AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



The farmer who feeds and properly looks after 

 hogs, cattle, or sheep, cannot spend as much time 

 in the field as he who keeps no stock of these 

 kinds. The dairy industry comes more into com- 

 petition with the crops of the fields, than do the 

 other live stock industries. But while a part of 

 the time devoted to live stock must be subtracted 

 from the time which can be spent in the field, yet, 

 for the most part, the live stock industry is supple- 

 mentary to the other branches of agricultural pro- 

 duction. Live stock requires the especial atten- 

 tion of the farmer in the winter when nothing can 

 be done in the fields. In the summer, when the 

 farmer is busy in the field, much of the live stock 

 is shifting for itself in the pasture, and there is 

 usually enough time when the ground is too wet 

 for work in the field, to permit the farmer to give 

 the needed attention to the live stock which is in 

 the pasture. 



To the extent that the live stock industry is 

 supplementary, in its demands upon the time and 

 energy of the farmer, to the production of farm 

 crops, he has only to decide whether the additions 

 to his total net profit, resulting from the trans- 

 formation of the various crops into animal prod- 

 ucts, are sufficient to remunerate him for the 

 efforts put forth. But to the extent that the live 

 stock industry encroaches upon the time and 

 energy available for crop production, the problem 

 of determining whether to sell his crops or con- 

 So 



