DIVERSIFIED AND SPECIALIZED FARMING 105 



a single product. A farmer may grow many kinds of fruit 

 and so have a diversified farm. He may grow nothing 

 but grain crops and yet have a diversified farm. 



If a farmer's only important sale is potatoes, his farm 

 is specialized, whether he grows five acres or fifty. Another 

 farmer may grow just as many potatoes, run a dairy, and 

 raise hay to sell, and he will have a diversified farm. 



General farming usually means that one grows the usual 

 animals and field crops of the region. It is one kind of 

 diversified farming. It is sometimes wrongly used to 

 mean that nothing much is being done. 



A farmer who sells only one important product has a 

 highly specialized farm. If he sells several important 

 products, his farm is diversified. In either case he may 

 sell a number of relatively unimportant items. 



NUMBER OF SPECIALIZED FARMS 



76. Most farms have several important products. 

 There are very few highly specialized farms, not nearly 

 so many as is commonly supposed. If we except the 

 cotton farms, probably over 95 per cent of the other farms 

 in the United States derive most of their income from a 

 combination of crops and animals, general farming. 

 The census results given in Table 19 are suggestive. The 

 farms classified as live-stock, hay, and grain, are mostly 

 general farms. Either of these terms includes many things. 

 The farms classified as miscellaneous did not derive as 

 much as 40 per cent of their income from any one of the 

 groups of products listed. These classes make up 69 per 

 cent of all farms. 



A farm that gets only 40 per cent of its income from its 

 chief source cannot be said to be specialized. If the 



