370 FARM MANAGEMENT 



quently, it will pay to buy such land so as to make a better 

 laid-out farm. It is worth much more to the farmer who 

 lives near it. 



The ideal arrangement is to have half of the land on 

 each side of the highway. Unfortunately, the excellent 

 system of laying out land in square miles in the West 

 resulted in making the road the usual farm boundary. 

 In much of the area, every other section was given to the 

 railroads. This was usually held until the free land was 

 all settled. This method of settlement usually prevented 

 farmers from getting land on both sides of the highway. 

 This error has cost the farmers many millions of dollars' 

 worth of lost time in going to and from the fields. 



232. Four methods of farm layout. Very frequently, 

 the farmstead on a 160-acre farm is on one corner of the 

 farm. The land is then no nearer the buildings than it is 

 on a 640-acre farm with the buildings in the center. Such 

 a farm has the chief disadvantages and none of the advan- 

 tages of the 640-acre farm. 



Figures 78, 79, 80, and 81 show four different arrange- 

 ments for a 160-acre farm. In each case, the barn is 10 

 rods from the road, and a little over 6 acres is allowed for 

 farmstead, garden, yards, paddocks, and minor crops. 



The average distance from the barn to the nearest corner 

 of the different fields in Figure 78 is 68 rods. If the farm- 

 stead is placed in the center, as in Figure 79, the average 

 distance is 48 rods. This makes a saving of 40 rods on 

 every load hauled and on every other round trip to the 

 field. 



The fields with the arrangement in Figure 78 are too 

 long for their width. Those in Figure 79 are better shaped, 

 but with this arrangement there are two fields that are too 

 near square. 



