IOWA AND BAVARIA CROP YIELDS PER ACRE 

 AND PER MAN 



By E. A. Goldenweiser, United States Department 

 of Agriculture 



(Published by permission of the Office of Farm Management) 



ENTHUSIASTS for higher yields per acre have frequently 

 made the statement that the European farmer, by dint of 

 careful work, makes his land yield a great more than does the 

 American farmer. The defenders of American agriculture, on 

 the other hand, maintain that the significant figure is not the 

 yield per acre but the yield per man, since the farmer's standard 

 of living depends on the income per man rather than per acre. 



It has been claimed, for instance, that while the Bavarian 

 farmer produces seven times as much per acre as the Iowa 

 farmer, the latter produces six times as much per man as the 

 former. Such a comparison is significant because Iowa is repre- 

 sentative of the best American agricultural practice and Bavaria 

 is not far from the average for Germany. An examination of the 

 yields per acre of wheat, oats, barley, rye, potatoes, and hay 

 shows that the yields in Bavaria are indeed somewhat higher than 

 those in Iowa, the yield of wheat being 21.4 bushels in Bavaria 

 (191 1) and 15.3 in Iowa (1909) ; the yields of oats, barley, and 

 rye also being higher in Bavaria, while the potato yield in Bavaria 

 was 138.5 bushels as compared with 86.8 bushels in Iowa, and 

 the hay yield was 2.2 tons in Bavaria as compared with 1.6 tons 

 in Iowa. Thus it appears that Bavaria has something of an ad- 

 vantage over Iowa in yield per acre of the crops grown in both 

 places, but this advantage is more than overcome by the fact that 

 Iowa produces nearly 350 million bushels of corn, at the rate of 

 37 bushels per acre, while Bavaria raises no corn at all. Owing 



148 



