856 SUCCESSFUL FARMING 



Rearranging Farms. — As a rule, farms in the older sections of the 

 country contain many small, irregular fields. These should be combined 

 in a systematic way and the number reduced to meet the crop rotation most 

 desirable. Such revision calls for careful thought, considerable work and 

 some expense. Often stone fences or rows of trees and shrubbery will have 

 to be removed in order to unite small fields. Such revision brings into 

 cultivation land that is now absolutely wasted and increases the economy 

 in the farm operations. It enables the use of larger teams and bigger 

 machines which cannot be economically used on very small, irregular fields. 

 One needs to figure on the saving in time and land for the years to come as 

 compared with the expense called for in the remodeling process. As a 

 rule, the work of cleaning up old fence rows can be performed at odd times 

 when the crops and animals of the farm do not call for all the time of the 

 farmer. From this standpoint, the cost may be comparatively slight. 



The accompanying sketches show a farm before and after revision in 

 this way and bring out the decided advantages of the new plan 



Crop Ledger Plan. — A plan of the farm drawn to scale, showing the 

 size and shape of fields and location of buildings, woodlots, etc., is always 

 desirable. Such a plan is necessary in connection with working up a new 

 plan for the farm. After the new plan has been arranged, a number of 

 copies may be provided so there may be one copy for each year on which 

 may be entered the name of the crop grown on each field, the acres con- 

 tained and the yield secured. This forms a permanent record, if kept, and 

 gives a history of the cropping of the fields. 



If desirable, two copies may be used, one to show the fields which have 

 received manure from year to year, in order that manure may be equally 

 distributed over the entire farm. The use of this system is illustrated in 

 the accompanying sketch. 



REFERENCES 

 "The Farmstead." Roberts. 

 Illinois Expt. Station Bulletin 105. 



Wisconsin Expt. Station Bulletin 105. "Improvement of Home Grounds." 

 U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 236. 

 Farmers' Bulletin, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture: 



317. Pages 5-10. "Planning a Home." 



370. "Replanning a Farm for Profit." 



