CHAPTER XXV. 



SPECIALTIES. 



IT is well to grow a variety of crops for your 

 own experience and your own table. But 

 for profit, it is best to specialize, because 

 if you read up all you should know about several 

 crops, you will have no time to raise them. 



Specialization is the rule now in all lines of 

 business, and as the farmer gets to be more and 

 more a business man, he will adopt business 

 methods, and push ahead. The big farm, 

 partially cultivated, and covered with a great 

 variety of crops which require as many varieties 

 of cultivation to give good results, is a thing of 

 the past, except where some individual farmer 

 is too stupid to read the handwriting on the 

 wall. It never paid as it ought, and it entailed 

 tremendous labor. Now big areas are only 

 cultivated where lots of help is employed, and 

 diversity of crops can only be successfully 

 practiced under the same conditions. 



Today the custom of cultivating small areas 

 is increasing, and where it is done for profit, 

 the grower more and more tends to specialize. 

 Secretary Critchfield, of the Pennsylvania State 

 Department of Agriculture, said some years 

 ago that " the greatest amount of money in 



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