PRINCIPLES OF PERMANENT AGRICULTURE 3! 



will support greater numbers of live stock, and the 

 process of building up the producing power of the 

 land on the one hand and increasing the efficiency 

 of farm animals by careful selection and breeding 

 on the other, will tend toward a profitable and per- 

 manent live stock industry in America. It is prob- 

 ably true that occasionally plant food in some form 

 will have to be purchased from the outside, because 

 the fertility of the farm cannot be maintained sim- 

 ply by returning to the land the manure made by 

 live stock fed upon crops grown upon the land. It 

 is equally true, however, that most systems of live 

 stock farming demand the purchase of vastly less 

 plant food than is required by any system of grain 

 farming. Raise good crops, but use them for mak- 

 ing better stock. Then the transfer of plant food 

 will be small and the profits from the farm be more 

 satisfactory, more profitable, more uplifting, and 

 the land will give out its fat with readiness and 

 with unheard of liberality. 



