216 A YEAR IN AGRICULTURE 



of farm management should give ideas of the importance 

 and of the value of the business side of farming, and lead 

 to a further study in more specialized courses. 



(a) The first large problem is the type of agriculture to 

 carry on, for this will determine the capital, labor, equip- 

 ment, and land investment. Shall the type be general farm- 

 ing, live-stock farming, grain farming, fruit farming, truck 

 farming, or the more specialized types such as hog raising, 

 wheat farming, apple growing, poultry raising, etc.? Cli- 

 mate, soil, topography, transportation, markets, capital, labor 

 supply, and the personal desires of the farmer will all be 

 factors in making a choice. 



(b) A second large problem is whether the farmer shall 

 do intensive farming on fewer acres and permanently main- 

 tain his soil fertility, or whether he shall do extensive farm- 

 ing, mining the soil's fertility to get the largest crop pos- 

 sible from as large an acreage as possible, with no considera- 

 tion for the permanency of the soil's fertility. This often 

 becomes a real problem to the man trying to pay off a 

 mortgage on a large farm in a few years. 



(c) The rotation of crops to utilize the maximum of land 

 yielding profitable crops each year, and still to maintain the 

 fertility of the soil, is a practical problem constantly before' 

 the farmer. 



(d) The amount and kind of live stock to keep is a prob- 

 lem in most farm business. Whether to sell the grain and 

 hay or to feed it to live stock, how much feed it will take, 

 whether to buy feeders, or to raise one's own stock, are live 

 questions in farm management. 



