354 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



If the good farm lands now unused, mostly in second-growth 

 timber, were devoted to such cropping systems the South could with 

 its present working force grow approximately its present acreage of 

 cotton and at the same time devote twice or three times this area to 

 other crops. This would, of course, require a large increase in the 

 number of work animals used as well as in implements, and this would 

 call for much more capital than is now available to the farmers of 

 that section. When the problems here briefly discussed have been 

 worked out for the South and southern agriculture begins rapid 

 expansion to its full possibilities, there will be great need of sources 

 of agricultural credit so that the money may be had for that develop- 

 ment. 



In the Pacific Northwest there exists a peculiar system of agricul- 

 ture which illustrates some of the principles here discussed. In cer- 

 tain sections the farmers grow little else than wheat. Unlike cotton, 

 this crop has no critical period during which it requires a vast 

 amount of hand labor, but can be handled from start to finish almost 

 entirely by horse or mechanical power. 



In eastern Washington the limit to the area of this crop one man 

 can grow is the acreage of land he can prepare for seeding. In the 

 preparation of the land one man can easily utilize five or six horses, 

 and we actually find this number commonly used by one man. All 

 the implements are made as large as practicable. By a further 

 ingenious device the season for preparing the land is lengthened. A 

 given field bears a crop only once in two years. The farmer therefore 

 has a long time in which to prepare the land. But this time is not as 

 long as might be expected, because the winters in that section are too 

 wet to permit much field work and the summers are so dry that the 

 soil soon becomes too hard to plow. But by double disking the land 

 very early in the spring, which can be done before it is dry enough to 

 plow, a mulch is created which keeps the soil mellow till late in June. 

 Thus, with 5-horse teams and a comparatively long season in which 

 to do the plowing, a large area can be prepared by one man. In fact, 

 the typical size for a one-man exclusive wheat farm in that section is 

 about 320 acres, on which 160 acres of wheat are grown annually. 

 Managed in this way, a wheat farm gives the farmer plenty of profit- 

 able work to do from early in the spring until nearly harvest time. 

 Then the harvest season gives another long period of work. In that 

 region the varieties of wheat grown will stand several weeks after 

 they are ready to cut, so that the harvest season is greatly prolonged, 



