TYPES OF FARMING 55 



feed and more insect food in the South. This partly 

 offsets the high feed cost. 



45. Relation of cost of production to disposition of 

 crops. No subject seems to be more generally mis- 

 understood than the relation of crops to stock. The usual 

 theory seems to be that if corn and hay can be easily and 

 cheaply grown, they should be fed to live-stock. Perhaps 

 the basis of this error is the absurd practice of some in- 

 stitutions of charging feed to animals at the cost of pro- 

 ducing it rather than at what it can be sold for, less the 

 cost of marketing. Some farmers are able to produce 

 hay at a cost of $5 per ton. On other farms it costs $25. 

 When this is charged to cows, it should be counted at its 

 selling value. The cost has nothing to do with the value. 

 The farmer who produced it at a cost of So might feed it 

 to steers and get $8 for it ; by this means he could make 

 a profit on the two things, and steers might be hailed a 

 very profitable enterprise. This sort of figuring misleads 

 some farmers. If hay is worth $15 a ton on the market, a 

 farmer is very foolish to sell it to steers for $8, no matter 

 what it cost him. It would be equally unwise to sell it if 

 he could feed it to cows and get $16 for it. If the man 

 whose hay costs him $25 can get only $16 for it by feeding 

 it to cows, he will lose money on the two enterprises, but 

 he should not blame the cows for his loss. 



Every crop should be disposed of in the way that will 

 pay best, regardless of the cost of producing it. In figuring 

 on live-stock, manure should of course be counted at what 

 it is worth, but no more and no less. 



46. Transportation as affecting hog-production. It 

 requires about 5 to 6 pounds of corn to produce a pound 

 of hog. The pound of pork can be shipped at a much less 

 cost than the 5 pounds of corn. The opinion that corn 



