FACTORS OF SUCCESS IN FARMING 597 



Ways of increasing the size of business. Some persons have 

 drawn the erroneous conclusion that a man with a small capital 

 cannot be a farmer because a large farm is necessary. This is 

 far from the case. One with no money can be a hired man. 

 One who has $1000 to $2000, who knows how to farm, and 

 who is efficient and honest can rent a good farm. There are 

 many ways of getting control of a good-sized farm without own- 

 ing it all. Only 36 per cent of the farmers in the United States 

 own all the land that they operate and are free from debt. 



Some farmers who have small farms and who are not in debt 

 would do well to borrow money and buy more land. Many 

 farmers have taken this means of increasing the size of their 

 business. 



There are over half a million farmers in the United States 

 who own part of the land that they farm and rent additional 

 land. This is usually farmed with little more men, horses, or 

 machinery than would have been required to farm the land 

 owned. Very frequently this is the best solution of the problem 

 for one who already owns a farm. In every county and in every 

 state where such studies have been made, the farmers who rent 

 additional land make more than those who farm only as much 

 as they own. 1 



Another way of increasing the size of the business is to use 

 the land for a more intensive type of farming, as poultry-raising 

 or truck growing. The soil, climate, transportation, and other 

 factors have such a controlling influence on type of farming that 

 one should give the matter careful study before attempting a 

 type of farming that is not already followed in the region. 

 Farmers have tried almost everything. The present types of 

 farming are the ones that have stood the test. They are usually 

 not far wrong. 



On many farms, the acres of crops can be increased by chang- 

 ing brush land to pasture and farming the pasture land. Other 

 farms have land that can be reclaimed by drainage. There are 

 other cases in which land is already being used too intensively. 



1 Cornell University Agr. Exp. Station, Bulletin 295, p. 426. U.S. Dept. Agr., 

 Bulletin 41, p. 14. 



