Special Farming. 53 



could not become more skillful in the raising, managing and 

 marketing of those crops than he could if he had a dozen differ- 

 ent ones to attend to ? There is too much to learn now about 

 any crop for one man's head to be thoroughly up to the times on 

 everything, and there are more difficulties yet in the way of 

 putting his knowledge into practice when it is very much diver- 

 sified. 



The distinction made by some writers between mixed and 

 special farming is that in the former some kind of animal keeping 

 is united with the growing of crops. I would hardly look at it 

 in this way. A dairyman might make a specialty of the produc- 

 tion of milk or butter and grow a rotation of clover, corn 

 (ensilage) and wheat, the first two to feed his cows, and the last 

 crop to seed with and furnish straw for bedding. If he attempted 

 no more, but stopped right there with this necessary rotation, I 

 should consider him not only a wise farmer, but a special one 

 one doing differently from the ordinary way. One may keep 

 hogs and raise clover, corn and wheat, or sheep and raise largely 

 grass, and not be what I would call a mixed or diversified farmer, 

 as the term is usually considered to mean. 



I live in a dairy section, one of the best in the country, 

 perhaps ; but nothing can be more true than that, on the average, 

 these cows do not produce more than half as much as they might 

 easily be made to. Now, I fully believe yes, I know that to 

 push these dairies up to the other half would pay far better than 

 using part of one's time to push some other industry on the farm 

 not at all connected necessarily with dairying. Thousands try to 

 do both of these things, but they do not, as a rule, and never can 

 succeed. The first $30 from a cow has little profit in it; the next 

 $30, where the conditions were right for the business, might be 

 made to show a very large profit in fact, an enormous percent- 

 age of gain. But, instead of working for that last $30 and the 

 big profit, the mass work at something else in which there is no 

 profit, because it is only pushed up half way. You may work at a 

 dozen things, and only carry them up to the average, and they will 

 just barely (sometimes not hardly) pay cost of production. You 

 may take one or two lines, and push them to the top, and realize 50 

 or even 100 per cent, net profit. I can take you right to farmers 

 who are doing this. You cannot do it if you spread too much. 

 Of course, the mere dropping off of some crops will not of itself 

 help one. It simply gives a man of push and determination a 

 better chance to help himself, just as does tile draining where 

 needed. Would that all could plainly see this matter of the 

 difference between income and profit from the farm. I may get a 

 thousand dollars from a number of sources different crops sold, 

 animals, etc., and not have one cent of actual net profit in any 

 single thing sold. This is depression in agriculture. It is what 

 plenty are doing. But you can find men raising the same crops, 



