504 FARM MANAGEMENT 



decay to grow more crops. If with these ages of green- 

 manuring a rich soil was not produced, it will never be 

 made permanently rich. We may add manure and fer- 

 tilizers and grow good crops, but if the soil is not naturally 

 rich, it will fail as soon as we stop feeding it. 



If the crops grown are valuable enough, it may pay to 

 farm it in this way. Most of the vegetables for the 

 eastern cities are grown on the sandy soils of the Atlantic 

 Coast. These soils are often little more than a place on 

 which to grow crops. But the crops are high-priced ones ; 

 the soils are warm and grow crops quickly. They are 

 easily tilled. With truck crops, it pays better to add 

 enormous quantities of manure and fertilizer on such 

 soils than to use heavy soils that are naturally rich, but 

 that require much more work and that do not grow vege- 

 tables of so good quality. The manure and fertilizer 

 very frequently cost $20 to $30 per acre per year. 



One very successful farmer in New Jersey uses a ton of 

 fertilizer per acre and twenty tons of manure in growing 

 cantaloupes. The fertilizer costs $30 and the manure 

 $2.50 per ton, besides the hauling. Each year the farmer 

 spends twice as much for fertilizer and manure as the land 

 is worth. 



Such soils cannot be used to a profit for growing grain, 

 hay, or live-stock. If one is to raise general farm crops, 

 it pays very rarely to select a farm with a poor soil. If 

 too poor, such a farm is not worth taking as a gift, if 

 one is required to live on it. 



We advocate killing the cow that does not pay for her 

 feed. Why should we farm a soil where the crop does not 

 pay the cost of production? Some land is being farmed 

 that cannot possibly be made to pay with present prices 

 of products. Such land should be kept in woods or pasture 

 until some future time when it may pay for farming. 



