FACTORS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 173 



this plowing and harrowing, and does not possess and cannot 

 afford to buy a grain drill, it may pay him better to cultivate all 

 his land somewhat less intensively than to concentrate all his 

 force on a part of the land, allowing the rest to lie idle. Even 

 the latter method of using land would be less economical than 

 to employ an abundance of capital and cultivate it all thoroughly, 

 provided he had or could get the capital. Without any superior 

 knowledge of scientific farming, therefore, but merely by the 

 possession of more capital, it is quite possible for the farmers 

 generally to economize their land and make it produce more 

 per acre as well as per man. 



When a superior knowledge of agricultural science is added 

 to the possession of more and more capital, the possibilities of 

 economizing land are very greatly increased. A scientific rota- 

 tion of crops suited to all the conditions of the individual farm, 

 including not only its soil, its climate, its elevation and contour, 

 but; its markets and its sources of supply as well, is a problem 

 calling for profound study, and can only be mastered by a man 

 of scientific training or long experience. When several genera- 

 tions of scientific farmers have lived on the same farm and 

 have handed down their knowledge and experience from one 

 to another, many of the problems will doubtless be solved and 

 much waste of land and labor eliminated. 



Then there are the problems of tillage and fertilization, of 

 ini] Droving the physical and the chemical condition of the soil ; 

 the problems of animal and plant breeding, involving a knowl- 

 edge of the laws of heredity ; the problems created by that mul- 

 titude of pests which seem to come from a mysterious nowhere 

 to vex the soul of the farmer, these and a thousand other 

 problems call for solution, and the failure to solve them means 

 a waste not only of land but of labor as well. However, the 

 detailed discussion of these scientific methods would take us 

 into the fields of technical agriculture rather than rural economy. 



