SIZE OF FARMS 263 



168. Are the results due to the man? Some persons 

 believe that there are 40-acre farmers, 80-acre farmers, 

 and 300-acre farmers, and that all these men have so 

 shifted around that the larger farms are always in the 

 hands of the better men. The better results are, there- 

 fore, all attributed to the man. 



A study of the history of a large number of individual 

 farms and farmers shows that the man is only one of the 

 many factors that have to do with success. The soil and 

 the area of crops grown are more frequent causes of success 

 and failure. 



To make even a moderate success on a small farm is 

 very much more difficult than it is to make a good success 

 on a fair-sized farm. When the necessary equipment and 

 horses for an 80-acre farm will be almost sufficient for 

 160 acres, and when a family can do all the work on the 

 larger farm, it will be seen at once that the larger farm 

 will double the income without much more expense. It 

 therefore becomes a task for a genius on the 80-acre farm 

 to compete with a very ordinary mortal on the larger 

 area. 



It takes much less intelligence to make a profit out of 

 a mowing machine that cuts 50 acres than it does out of one 

 that cuts 10 acres a year. It takes less ability to make 

 a profit out of four horses that raise 100 acres of crops 

 than it does to make a profit out of half as many horses 

 that farm only 40 acres. It takes much less intelligence 

 to direct a hired man so as to make a profit from employing 

 him, if he drives 3 or 4 horses, than it does if he drives two 

 horses. 



The confusion has arisen from the almost universal 

 tendency to deal with extremes, and to think of the small 

 farm as a one-man farm and the large farm as a farm where 



