ORGANIZATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISE 353 



cutting down the acreage of his cotton crop. But to do this it will 

 be necessary to select enterprises that will not require much attention, 

 if any, during cotton chopping or picking time. One of the big farm- 

 management problems of the South is the formulation of systems of 

 farming that will utilize the forces that now go to waste at seasons 

 when the cotton crop does not completely employ the farmer's time 

 and equipment. 



The critical periods for the potato crop are planting and harvest. 

 Corn is a crop that has no strictly critical period. It gives about the 

 same amount of work at all times, from the beginning of plowing the 

 seed bed to the last cultivation. Even at harvest time one man can 

 gather all the corn he can grow, though it is customary to employ 

 extra labor at this time. Generally speaking, farm enterprises have 

 one or more periods when so much work is required that those periods 

 determine the extent of the enterprise in any given case. 



We have already seen that the limiting factor in the area of cotton 

 an average farmer can grow is the quantity the members of his family 

 can pick. This is about seven bales. On ordinary uplands, where 

 the yield is about one-third of a bale per acre, this means about 20 

 acres of cotton to the family. One horse can till this acreage, and 

 as no other money crop is grown a farm of this size is usually a one- 

 horse farm. A few acres of corn are grown, but as there is only one 

 horse and as the cotton tillage keeps him quite busy, the corn is poorly 

 tilled and yields very little. Because the implements used are all 

 one-horse implements, the preparation of the seed bed for cotton, the 

 planting, and the tilling keep the farmer busy from early in the spring 

 until late in July. The picking then occupies the fall season quite 

 completely. Thus, the one crop gives the farmer employment during 

 nearly the entire season. This is one of the reasons that the single- 

 crop system of cotton growing has persisted so tenaciously in the 

 South; it gives employment pretty nearly as constantly as a well- 

 planned system of farming would do, and thus enables the farmer to 

 earn a living. The difficulty is that it does not utilize the full possi- 

 bilities of the man and therefore gives him a poor living. When a 

 man is following a 6-inch plow or a 1 2-inch sweep drawn by an 800- 

 pound mule his time may be fully but not well utilized, and he is not 

 working at his full earning capacity. What the cotton growers of the 

 South need are systems of farming that will permit one man to employ 

 the full power of two or, better, four horses throughout the season. 

 This would greatly increase the earning capacity of the individual. 



