SPECIAL FARM TOPICS 193 



would still leave him a comfortable balance of $875 for a sinking 

 fund. (Ohio Ex. Sta. B. 107.) 



Intensive Methods on Large Farms. On large farms or on 

 farms where large areas are devoted to the cultivation of single 

 crops, such as wheat, corn, tobacco, rice and cotton, the close in- 

 tensive methods applicable to the small farm, owing to the high 

 price of labor, cannot be so successfully applied; but even there the 

 great aim should be to secure the highest yield possible from every 

 acre. Drainage, crop rotation, fertilization, wise selection of seed, 

 correct plowing, careful planting and proper cultivation, all parts 

 of intensive farming methods, can be applied to the large or single 

 crop farm. 



Southern Conditions. The tobacco growers of the present gen- 

 eration have as their heritage the fields once fertile but now impover- 

 ished by the unconsciously wasteful methods of their ancestors. 

 This method of exploiting the superfluity of fertile land in a new 

 country has generally prevailed in other sections, but its evil effects 

 have been more aggravated in the South because of the essentially 

 one-crop system of farming and the absence of a live stock hus- 

 bandry. 



Conditions now, however, are radically changing economically 

 in that section and elsewhere. Both land and timber are rapidly 

 increasing in value, and in place of a plethora of cheap labor farm 

 helpers are now becoming extremely scarce and obtainable only at a 

 greatly advanced wage. This combination of new conditions ren- 

 ders the system of clearing and subsequently abandoning land com- 

 paratively unprofitable. Agricultural methods are now in process 

 of adaptation to a new set of economic conditions. In the future a 

 large proportion of the tobacco produced must be grown not upon 

 fresh land but upon old land, and the fundamental present-day 

 problem of the grower is how profitably to restore the depleted fer- 

 tility of the old fields. The time consumed in cultivating an acre 

 of infertile land is nearly as great as that required for an acre of 

 highly productive land, and it will not pay to employ high-priced 

 labor on soils of low productivity. In restoring the crop-producing 

 power of these soils, undoubtedly the most important step is to in- 

 crease the humus supply. The diversification of crops, a greatly 

 improved rotation system, an effective live stock husbandry, and the 

 general introduction of much more intensive methods will consti- 

 tute the better and more profitable methods of the future. (Y. B. 

 1908.) 



Intensive Farming With Corn. What is known as kernel- 

 spaced checking in corn planting combines the advantages of the 

 two methods now used in planting, and largely overcomes the dis- 

 advantages of those methods. In all fields of corn planted with the 

 most modern check-rowers can be found many hills containing a 

 stalk that has not produced well. In many cases the stunting is due 

 to the quicker starting of the other plants which enables them to 

 monopolize space, moisture, fertility and sunlight. Such stunting, 

 because of the nature of the corn plant, materially reduces the grain 



