154 FARM MANAGEMENT 



One very important advantage of the more extensive 

 types of farming is that for the same capital more land 

 can be owned. With the general tendency for land to 

 rise in price, the profit from the increased value of the farm 

 is often as great as the savings of the farmer. 



104. Relation of crop to soil and treatment. Intensive 

 crops should be grown on the soil best adapted to them, 

 unless there is a shortage of such soil. The farmer who 

 tries to raise truck crops on soil that is not naturally good 

 for this purpose will find it very difficult to compete with 

 farmers on better soil. Apples can be grown on the cheap 

 hill soils of Pennsylvania and New York. Some persons 

 have considered that this is sufficient reason for recom- 

 mending that large orchards be planted on this cheap, 

 poor land. But there is plenty of good land in these states 

 adapted to apples. The crop should be grown on the 

 good apple land and leave the land that is not so good for 

 apples, for less intensive crops. Most farmers realize this. 



The least intensive way to use land is to leave it in 

 woods ; the next least intensive is pasture. Hay, small 

 grain, and cultivated crops follow in order. 



There is some land being farmed in the United States 

 that cannot by any means be made to pay reasonable 

 wages to the operator, at the present prices of farm prod- 

 ucts. The outlying hills of the Appalachian and other 

 mountain ranges of the Eastern States have many such 

 farms. 



This fact is self-evident, but seems to be forgotten in 

 the wave of " back-to-the-land " talk that now fills 

 American publications. No one advocates working an 

 iron mine that does not pay. Why work land that does 

 not pay decent wages to the operator ? It has often been 

 demonstrated that such land can be made to yield big 



