CHAPTER XXI 



SYSTEMS OF FARMING AND THEIR RELATION TO 

 SOIL FERTILITY 



THE important problem in agriculture concerns the main- 

 tenance of soil fertility which, in a large measure, determines the 

 future welfare of a state or a nation. Good farming is commonly 

 regarded as the proper method wherein soil fertility may be main- 

 tained, or permanent agriculture established. Does good farming 

 necessarily mean stock farming? 



Systems of Farming. Three main systems of farming are 

 recognized, namely: (a) grain farming; (6) stock farming, and 

 (c) truck farming. Aside from these there are combinations 

 of two or all three systems. The first two systems are the 

 most common. 



Grain farming, in its strict sense, may be defined as that 

 system of farming in which crops are raised and sold off the farm. 

 Crops include corn, small grains, cotton, seeds, etc. 



Stock farming consists in the raising of stock. The crops grown 

 are fed on the farm. The sources of income are stock and animal 

 products (Fig. 223). 



GRAIN FARMING VS. STOCK FARMING 



Grain Farming Is Important. A large percentage of the 

 farmers in the United States are grain farmers. Many have found 

 it more profitable than stock raising. A well-balanced national 

 agriculture demands that a large portion of the farmers be grain 

 growers, because grains constitute the great source of human foods. 

 This fact is emphasized the more in densely populated countries, 

 as in China. 1 Furthermore, many more people can be fed on the 

 grain that can be grown on an acre, for example, than on the 

 animal products that may be produced when the grain is fed to 

 livestock. 2 It follows, therefore, that the greater the density 



1 Farmers of Forty Centuries, by King. 



2 It has been roughly estimated that twenty-four per cent of grain is 

 recovered for human food in pork, about eighteen per cent in milk, and only 

 about three and five-tenths per cent in beef and mutton. Science, Vol. 

 XLVI., No. 1181, page 160. 



An acre of wheat yielding twenty bushels will furnish more than thirteen 

 times as much energy as an acre devoted to beef production. U. S. Farmers' 

 Bulletin, 877. 



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