ECONOMY OF FARMING. 



SECTION I. 



MEANING AND NECESSITY OF THIS BRANCH OF INSTRUCTION. 



1. The doctrine respecting the Household, is called its Or- 

 ganization, or Rural Economy. 



[The German word here translated Household, " Hausehalt," is not limited as is 

 our word Household, to the family, or the conduct of domestic affairs ; but embraces 

 the whole in-door and out-door establishment ; and more especially in the present 

 treatise, the farming operations. The word translated Rural Economy, " Landwirth- 

 Bchaft," might perhaps be more definitely expressed by Land-Husbandry. I shcdl 

 sometimes use either term. — Tr.] 



2. It shows the amount and proportional employment of the different 

 powers and means requisite for the conduct of that business, so as to 

 derive from it the greatest gain in the given circumstances. 



The object of farming is that of all kinds of business, viz., by means of labor and 

 money, judiciously employed, to produce gain, or to acquire money: — in other 

 words, for one so to employ his labor and capital as, by the management of his 

 affairs, to secure the highest income. 



In order to reach this object, it is necessary for a person to know not merely — on 

 which it depends — how to rear up plants and animals, but also the expense of the 

 powers and means of aid demanded for this purpose ; so as neither to make too great 

 an outlay for the given circumstances of his business — in which case he will not be 

 repaid by his probable profit — nor too small a one, which would keep the whole en- 

 terprise in a crippled state, 



[In Vol. I., sec. i., of his work, to which he here refers, our author defines Land- 

 Husbandry to be " that science which teaches us how to raise up and employ use- 

 fully plants and animals," and says that "its object is douh\e^ general a.nd special ; the 

 first, on account of which land-husbandry is generally carried on, is the production of 

 animals and plants, serving for the food, clothing, and other conveniences of men ; the 

 particular or special is, by the conduct of land-husbandry as a business to use the cap- 

 ital thus employed to the greatest advantage." He also observes, that " it is not the 

 greatest possible production of plants on a given space, or the rearing of the largest 

 and finest animals, which is the object of the farmer in the last point of view, but 

 how the capital may be employed in agriculture, and in rearing animals, to the 

 greatest advantage — that is, so as to yield the highest income." This particular, it is 

 believed, is often lost sight of in the account of very large crops, or animals raised, 

 which are found in our Agricultural Journals. With the Germans it appears to be 

 carried to a great nicety of calculation, as many of the following pages will 

 ehow.— Tr.] 



3. Land-Husbandry consists in the connection of the production of 

 plants with the rearing of cattle. 



4. The essence of the doctrine of the Household (See 1.) is to unite 

 Agriculture with the breeding of cattle, so as thus to obtain the greatest 

 gain. 



[With respect to the whole subject embraced in the preceding section, Thaer, in 



