128 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



most efficient land the chances for profits are greatest for 

 the most efficient man, but the chances for losses are also 

 greatest if one prove to be less efficient than his competitors. 

 The safe thing for a young man to do is to rent land on shares 

 and take the best land he can get. If he handles land well, he 

 will be sought by the men who have the best farms. This 

 will more or less automatically put the tenant farmer on the 

 land corresponding to his ability. When he is ready to buy a 

 farm, his experience as a tenant will give the basis for judging 

 whether he should buy the choicest land and pay the price, 

 which will necessarily be high, or take land of second or third 

 class for which the competition is not so keen and for which 

 an. appreciably lower price will be asked. 



Having decided to be a farmer, the young man should next 

 decide upon the kind of farming he is to follow. This should 

 be settled only after considering carefully his personal abilities, 

 his likes and dislikes, and the results which he can hope to 

 secure in the various kinds of farming. 



Having settled upon the kind of farming to be followed, one 

 should select land which competitive forces have set aside for 

 this kind of farming. To insist on dairying in a hog and beef 

 cattle district, or to insist on being a grain farmer in a region 

 especially suited for and actually being used as a dairy district 

 is to invite failure at the first move. 



The character of the soil is an important consideration both 

 from the standpoint of total product per acre and the cost per 

 acre to operate. It is too common for farmers who are seeking 

 land to judge the land entirely by the product per acre without 

 looking into the cost per acre involved in growing the crop. It 

 costs very much more to prepare a seed bed in one kind of soil 

 than in another. In other words, the power of the land to 

 absorb labor is very important, for the greater the input per 

 acre the fewer the acres a man can operate and, the profit per 

 acre being the same, the smaller will be his total profits. The 

 starting point, in determining which land to buy, is to calculate 

 as best one can the total net return which can be secured from 

 the different farms which are available and then buy the one 



