90 FARM MANAGEMENT 



seems to be that agricultural specialists, who are dealing 

 with such enterprises, usually seem to feel that it is their 

 duty to encourage everyone to go to producing their 

 specialty. They are likely to try to discredit the pos- 

 sibility of overproduction of their particular specialty. 



Farmers who are growing such crops as apples, oranges, 

 potatoes, cabbages, onions, etc., find it difficult to plan 

 for their farm development. It is unsafe to go in debt 

 as heavily as when one is growing more stable crops. 

 These are the products that in some years give high 

 profits, and in other years, heavy losses. Nearly all 

 magazine articles that wish to show how rich farmers are 

 getting, use some of these speculative crops and select 

 years when profits are unusual. The farmer who depends 

 entirely on such products must always be prepared to 

 stand heavy losses. Regions that depend largely on such 

 products are subject to successive years of booms and 

 hard times. 



For these reasons, such crops are usually combined 

 with other things. In new regions, one crop farming may 

 continue for a time, but this will usually change to a mixed 

 farming as the country grows older. A common saying of 

 the apple growers of the North Atlantic States is that 

 they expect to live from the farm and depend on the 

 orchard for profits. Such a farmer may have ten acres 

 of apples on a 100-acre farm. If the apples fail, the 

 farm will usually pay expenses and keep the family ; so 

 that the farmer is not forced to live a year with a large 

 expense and no income. Most of the potato crop is grown 

 in the same way on general farms. The truck growers 

 also have a great variety of crops. 



60. Special demands of certain markets. Occa- 

 sionally there are special demands of certain markets that 



