CHAPTER XV 



ECONOMICS OF INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES 



THE intensive industries we have so far 

 discussed make up the major part of the 

 intensive agriculture of America. Inten- 

 sive agriculture is more than intensive agricul- 

 tural industries. It is a complex consisting of a 

 number of agricultural industries so articulated 

 that the whole is a harmonious profitable unit. 

 In America the tendency during late years has 

 been toward intensive industries instead of to- 

 ward the intensive complex. The development 

 of the single-crop system leads to the most risky 

 type of agriculture. Special or single-crop sys- 

 tems tend to deplete fertility, to fatigue the 

 land, to develop malnutrition troubles, and to 

 stimulate the ravages of both insect enemies and 

 fungus diseases. 



Where intensive crops are grown as single 

 crops, not as a part of a complex rotation, it is 

 often expensive and difficult to maintain fertil- 

 ity, but where the special crop is articulated 

 with a rotation system which carries a legumi- 

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