THE STUDY OF THE FARM. V'J 



farm. It may not be the best way. It is the way I should 

 naturally reach it, because I could only study it with real 

 interest when looking for some particular thing, and l)efore 

 minutely studying the farm in the search, should wish to 

 satisfy myself whether it is probably there. 



Suppose that I discover that in raising wheat my average 

 crop is fifteen bushels per acre, and I am making no money, 

 while my neighbor, who is getting ahead, gets twenty bushels 

 to the acre on an average. My study would be, how, with 

 the least additional expense, I could add five bushels a year to 

 my average crop. My trouble may be either in insufficient 

 tillage, or insufficient fertility, or both, or in the character of 

 the land. If the latter, it is evident that unless by drainage, 

 or some other practicable methods, I can change the character, 

 of the soil, I had better make a change of my crop. If bad 

 tillage or insufficient fertility is the cause of light crops; my 

 object will be to discover how I can most economically change 

 these conditions. If my neighbor's land and my own were 

 originally alike, and his is now in better condition, it must be 

 accepted in my mind that he is an abler man than myself, 

 and better farmer, and that I can not probably do better than 

 to watch his methods and follow them. 



This is always the conclusion hardest to accept. No man 

 will willingly admit that another is abler than himself, but if 

 the facts show it, it must be accepted if any progress is to be 

 made. Failure in farming, in the absence of sickness or other 

 special misfortune, is due either to the farm or the farmer. 

 The study of the farm should show which, and, the conclusion 

 once reached, effort must be directed to the improvement of 

 the element at fault. If the farm is fertile, or has once been 

 so, the fault is evidently in the farming, and this may be 

 either in choosing crops not suited to the land, or for which 

 there is no adequate market, or in poor rotations, or the 

 absence of any rotation, or in constant robbing of the soil 

 with no return of fertilizers, or in bad tillage, or in uneco- 

 nomical management. The study of the farm, especially in 

 connection with a book showing details of cost, should show 

 which. 



