THE ROTATION OF FARM CROPS 59 
Higher prices for farm crops have made the building up 
of worn-out farms very profitable. Better still, higher prices, 
by increasing the farmer’s surplus, are making this restora- 
tion possible as well as advantageous for the average farmer. 
If a farmer realizes that he is farming his land to its ultimate 
ruin he is still unable to make much of an advance along the 
line of soil conservation if he has only enough each year 
upon which to live. 
The city man who is complaining about the high cost of 
foodstuffs should be made to realize that high prices today 
are giving the farmer an incentive to do better farming and 
are giving him a working capital with which to build up 
and improve his farm. The present good prices that the 
farmer igs receiving will do more than anything else toward 
postponing the day when we may have a serious food shortage. 
Getting back to rotation; most farmers agree that con- 
tinuous corn culture has no place in progressive farming. 
As a temporary practice on rich virgin soils it may be all 
right,—perhaps for a few years while the farm is being paid 
for and some of the comforts are being accumulated about 
the house; but it a short-sighted policy for any other pur- 
pose and is a certain money loser on lands which have been 
long under cultivation. 
Rotation KiLus WEEDS 
Practiced in an intelligent and systematic manner, crop 
rotation will serve other purposes than the mere up-building 
of the soil. Chief among these is the possibility of destroying 
many troublesome weeds, or at least, of reducing presence 
to the point where they are of little consequence. 
Most weeds thrive better with some certain kind of crop. 
When land is devoted to one crop continuously for a number 
