92 FARM MANAGEMENT 



the market is not supplied by local products, there is in 

 effect a protective tariff of two freight charges and two 

 selling charges in favor of local production. One of the 

 most striking cases is the production of vegetables in 

 Alaska not because of favorable conditions, but because 

 of high prices. 



62. Growing products for home use. Much the 

 same principle applies in growing products for use on the 

 farm. A farmer may raise a hog or two for home use 

 when it would not pay him to consider raising hogs to 

 sell. If he buys pork from the meat market, he will 

 usually have to pay two or three times as much as he 

 gets when he sells, besides having to haul both ways. 

 For this reason, it generally pays a farmer to keep one or 

 two cows, 50 hens, a hog or two, and raise for home use 

 such fruits and vegetables as grow well, even where it 

 will not pay at all to raise any of these to sell. In addi- 

 tion, the health and happiness of the family are likely to 

 be much better if these products are raised. 



RELATION OF TYPE OF FARMING TO COMPETING TYPES 



63. The best-paying products crowd out those that 

 pay less. It is not sufficient that a crop pay ; it must 

 pay better than the other crops with \vhich it competes. 

 Corn may pay near cities, but if it cannot compete with 

 potatoes, sweet corn, and other tilled crops that require 

 work at the same time of year, it must give way. 



Many efforts have been made to introduce root crops 

 for stock feeding. But these crops compete with corn for 

 labor. For a given amount of work, corn will give much 

 more stock food than roots, in most parts of the United 

 States. This is not true in Europe, where the climate is 



