INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE FARMING 161 



tins. The facts there recorded as to yields may be ac- 

 cepted, but the conclusions as to profits are usually absurd, 

 because the difference between the cost of fertilizer and the 

 value of the increased crop is called profit. All the other 

 costs, such as interest, crop insurance, hauling and apply- 

 ing fertilizer, harvesting, storing, and marketing the in- 

 creased crop are ignored. The primary object of such 

 experiments is to determine the effect of any particular 

 treatment. This part is usually well done and is of great 

 value to farmers. The business interpretation of results is 

 very poorly done. 



The same point applies in the interpretation of results 

 of any other intensive methods. The statement that it 

 costs no more to handle a large crop than a small one is 

 almost universally accepted by persons who have never 

 kept any accounts of such work. It has even been as- 

 sumed that it costs no more to grow, harvest, store, and 

 sell 75 bushels of corn per acre than it does to raise 31 

 bushels. 1 Any conclusions based on such an assumption 

 are worse than useless. We must know the extra cost of 

 growing and handling the larger crop before we can tell 

 how large a crop it pays to grow. There is a limit both 

 ways in profitable crop production. 



When the writer has called attention to the extra costs 

 involved in handling the increased crop, at meetings of 

 agronomists, there has always been some one present to ob- 

 ject to assigning any value to the farmer's time, on the 

 theory that the farmer's time is not worth anything any- 

 way, and that if he gives a cow or a crop $10 worth of feed 

 or fertilizer and gets back $11 he has made a fine profit, 

 even if $5 worth of extra labor docs have to be ignored. 

 In the first place, the farmer's time is worth at least farm 



i U. S. Dept. Agr., Yearbook, 1911, p. 326. 

 M 



