PROBLEM OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 5 



33. Show how commercial agriculture leads to better utilization 

 of natural resources. May it lead to poorer utilization? Did you 

 ever see a cotton farm without a vegetable garden or a wheat farm 

 without any fruit trees ? 



34. Show the difference between individual self-sufficiency and 

 national self-sufficiency in agriculture. Is the latter desirable? 

 Why? 



35. Does commercial farming lead to one-crop agriculture? 

 Inevitably ? 



36. Does the specialty farmer secure greater efficiency from labor ? 

 from equipment ? Sometimes or always ? 



37. What is meant by "the business of farming'' ? What special 

 knowledge or training does it call for ? 



PROBLEMS 



1. "With the development of chemistry, bacteriology, and other 

 physical and biological sciences, the economic aspects of the produc- 

 tion side of agriculture were left to the farmer unaided. This resulted 

 in a one-sided development of our agricultural education, which 

 accounts for the fact that the wise farmer mistrusts many of the 

 statements handed him by the colleges and experiment stations." 

 Take several figures of loss due to insect pests or the escape of elements 

 of plant food, such as are given out by entomologists and chemists, 

 and illustrate the foregoing quotation. Show the relation of the 

 economic to the technical problem in agriculture. 



2. "The modern farmer, besides being something of a scientist, 

 must be a good general, a more than good financier, a good executive, 

 a man of courage and vision." Show how these qualities are related 

 to, or grow out of, the economic problem of agriculture. 



3. "The farmer used to be the most independent man on earth, 

 and therefore the happiest. But now he is falling a prey to the rail- 

 road and the capitalist, and the trader and the labor organizer. His 

 days of peace and prosperity are over." Is it true that the farmer 

 must contend with these and other outside forces today ? Is it true 

 that they have wrecked his peace and prosperity ? May he be bene- 

 fited by them if he has the knowledge of how to work with them? 

 Explain. 



ADDITIONAL REFERENCES 



Thomas, A Source Book of Social Origins. 

 Forrest, The Development of Western Civilization. 



Bogart and Thompson, Readings in the Economic History of the United 

 States. 



