36 BULLETIN 648, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
supplying food to the value of from $75 to $100 per person than 
those furnishing either more or less than that range. 
It would appear that the farmers who have produced the largest 
supply of family food at home have not thereby, on these farms, 
reduced the amount of food purchased. Rather, those who produced 
the most also purchased the most, since it is seen that the percentage 
of the total food bought is fairly constant. Those who produced the 
most food lived much better than those who produced less. The ques- 
tion of producing supplies at home seems, therefore, on these farms 
at least, to be not one of reducing the expense for purchased products, 
but it is rather one of a better standard of living. 
CROPPING SYSTEMS. 
In any region where economic conditions have been fairly uniform 
and operating over a considerable term of years, the type or types 
of agriculture tend to a stability of form that changes only in re- 
sponse to changes in the economic forces. Wide departures from 
practices that fit the economic factors at work are likely to lead 
to financial disaster to those persisting in them. The result is the 
automatic elimination of those continuing such wrong practices, and 
the eventual disappearance of the latter from the farming of the 
region. It will usually be found in an old established region that 
the average practices more or less closely approximate the best 
practice. 
The proper selection of farm enterprises is a large factor in deter- 
mining the success of the business. Of equal importance is the com- 
bining of these enterprises in the proportions that best fit the local 
conditions. Such a combination will be one that most efficiently 
employs the farm crew and equipment. Ordinarily, it will be one 
that distributes the labor, both man and work-stock, rather evenly 
throughout the year. But it is not to be assumed that under any 
set of conditions there is only one type of farming that may be 
safely followed, or that within the type there is not a certain range 
of choice in the selection of enterprises to be adopted and in the 
proportions in which these enterprises should be fitted together. In 
an area like Brooks County especially, with a growing season extend- 
ing nearly throughout the year, and with a long list of crops adapted 
to the soil and climate, the choice is a rather wide one. largely de- 
pendent upon the abilities and inclinations of the individual farmer. 
Much may be learned from a study of the average practices, and 
more especially of the practices which long experience has shown to 
be the ones best adapted to the region. This does not imply that 
the average practices are necessarily the best that could be devised. 
On the contrary, it will usually be found that they may be improved 
upon in important respects. Nevertheless, a study of the returns 
