Profiiahh Crops 27 



eiit, and the inan who was able to cope with 

 them drew the prize of $195 per acre for his 

 potatoes. This successful potato raiser the pre- 

 vious year secured more than 300 bushels per 

 acre, and sold them for 25 cents per bushel, 

 but even at this low price they brought more 

 than $75 per acre. If from 200 to 300 per cent 

 profit can be secured and the limit of profit not 

 reached by raising one of the most common 

 products of the farm, what possibilities loom up 

 for securing a competence from those products 

 which require greater skill and knowledge than 

 the raising of potatoes? 



Consider the croj^s which are supposed to 

 give promise of securing little or no profits at 

 the present low prices, as wheat, maize, hay and 

 oats. One man, on land naturally below the 

 average, has secured during the last fifteen years 

 an average of nearly 35 bushels of wheat, and 

 in a few cases 40 bushels per acre. The average 

 yield for the whole United States in 1889 was a 

 shade less than 14 bushels per acre. During the 

 same year the average yield of oats was 28.57 

 bushels per acre, and hay, including such other 

 crops as are used for forage, averaged 1.26 tons 

 per acre. Good [farmers secure 40 to 50 bushels 

 of oats, and 2 to 2% tons of hay, and in propi- 

 tious years 50 to 60 bushels of oats and 3 tons 

 of hay per acre. (Compare Figs. 1 and 2.) These 



