202 Our Farming. 



The exact cost of growing a crop will vary with season and 

 soil. It costs us now, say, about as follows : 



Use of land per acre, $6.00 



Plowing, 1.50 



Harrowing, 50 



Rolling, 25 



Eight bushels seed, average, if home grown, 4.00 



Cutting to one eye, 1.25 



Planting with planter, i.io 



Harrowing three times, 50 



Three times over with weeder, 60 



Cultivating some ten times, 4.00 



Weed pulling and hoeing ends, i.oo 



Digging and putting in barn, 6.00 



Keeping beetles off, 1.50 



Use of storage room, 1.80 



$30.00 



These figures are not far from right. 



If we get 200 bushels per acre and sell for fifty cents a bushel, 

 can you not see there is 200 per cent, net profit on the cost of 

 production ? I think I have hinted at some such profit in pre- 

 ceding pages, and I have got such profits, too, although, of course, 

 not always. And then there is one thing about these figures that 

 is worth noticing, viz., that there is not much money out in the 

 cost of production. I have just been comparing them with the 

 cost of a crop as figured ten years ago. Let me show you what I 

 mean. I find ten years ago I paid$i an acre for dropping seed. 

 Now the machine drops it and I ride and put the money in my 

 pocket keep it there don't pay it out. Then digging and 

 picking up cost $8.75. This was cash out. Now it costs $6, 

 and only $2.25 of this is cash out ; the rest for my horses and my- 

 self riding the digger. Ten years ago hoeing was put dow r n with 

 the hand pulling of weeds at $3 ; now at $i $2 less paid out. Of 

 course, interest and wear of machinery takes a little of this money 

 saved, but if properly cared for there is a good deal left for me. 



The amount of tillage given above calls up a point that may 

 be of interest. My noted friend, J. M. Smith, grows larger crops 

 of potatoes per acre than I do or can, on his very highly manured 

 garden soil, and in his more northern latitude of Green Bay, 

 Wisconsin, and he does not cultivate more than one-third as 

 much, perhaps. Now, how easy to say that I cultivate too much 

 because Mr. Smith does less and succeeds better ! Let us look at 

 this carefully, for it is an important point. Mr. Smith's land is 

 enormously rich. He puts on some forty loads of manure per 

 acre and has been doing it for many years. It is a garden soil 

 in a very high state of fertility . It is loose and full of vegetable 

 matter. It is in a condition where tillage, except to keep weeds 

 down, is of comparatively small account. Mine is a heavier soil, 

 only fertilized up to a good farming condition, not for garden 



