SIZE AND DIVERSITY OF FARM 



823 



not pay. Successful diversification consists in the production of enough 

 of a few products to make it worth while. 



Special farming is generally looked upon as the production of one 

 commodity. The subject is somewhat confused, because of such terms as 

 dairying, fruit farming and vegetable farming, that are often thought of as 

 special farming. Dairying, if confined to the production of wholesale milk, 

 would be a special line of farming, but it frequently includes the retailing 

 of milk, and the sale of pure-bred stock, in which case the farmer has three 

 lines of production. In fruit farming or truck farming, there will usually be 

 a variety of fruit and truck crops, so that it will not be specialized in the 

 true sense of the word. The same may be true of grain farming where a 

 variety of grains are grown in a systematic rotation and in such a way that 

 there is an equitable distribution of labor and a variety of cash crops. 



General View op Specialized Wheat Farming in Canada. 



Advantages of Special Farming. — Special fanning, or the production 

 of one product, has an advantage in that there is usually enough of it to 

 make it quite worth while. With a given area, it will provide for fields 

 sufficiently large to economize on the labor of men and teams and make 

 possible the use of the best machinery adapted to the crop in question. 

 With small capital one can provide for enough of one crop, whereas with 

 a number of crops it might be impossible to have enough to secure a desir- 

 able equipment. One becomes more skilled when dealing with only one 

 line of production. 



Special farming is subject to many disadvantages. It does not provide 

 for crop rotations. In case of failure from whatever cause, there is nothing 

 to fall back on. In diversified farming, if one crop fails there are others 

 that will bring fair returns. A single crop does not provide for distribution 

 of labor. There are times and places for this type of farming, but it gen- 

 erally consists in the production of some special crop for which there is a 

 limited demand. Wheat, as grown in the Northwest and in Canada, is 



