22 BULLETIN 1043, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
before the crop is ready for market are easily translated into terms 
of dollars by means of simple tables showing the cost of each oper- 
ation ; and the cost of seed and fertilizer, if any, as well as the com- 
mercial rental value, can no doubt be determined without much dif- 
ficulty. The plan does not readily lend itself, however, to a dif- 
ferentiation between good farming and poor farming except as these 
factors are evidenced by the number of field operations performed. 
In other words, unless the agent takes great personal care, the farmer 
who plows, disks, etc., in a slipshod manner, uses inferior seed, and 
exercises poor judgment in other respects, is likely to receive the 
same amount of insurance as the farmer who performs all field oper- 
ations in a first-class manner, uses the best varieties of seed, and exer- 
cises sound judgment with reference to the time of seeding, caring 
for, and harvesting his crops. Moreover, while the commercial rental 
supposedly reflects the productivity of the farm, rents are to a great 
extent the result of established custom and do not, as a rule, reflect 
with accuracy the productivity of a given farm. 
The other method, that of average yield and price, has the dis- 
advantage of being somewhat cumbersome and difficult to apply. 
Few farmers keep records of their yields from year to year, and 
without such records few will be able to give with any degreee of 
accuracy the yield obtained for each of five years past. Further- 
more, a very considerable percentage of the tenant farmers will not 
have tilled the farm they occupy for a sufficient number of years 
to give a reliable average yield. The plan has the merit, however, 
of measuring past results in so far as it is possible to secure the 
facts, and these form the most reliable basis for estimating the future 
results which are the subject of the proposed contract. 
The determination of the amount of insurance an acre to be written 
is particularly important in the general plan of insurance here con- 
sidered. In the ordinary insurance contract the amount of insurance 
placed on the various risks determines the size of the indemnity in 
case of loss, but does not, barring a moral hazard, affect the number 
of losses. Under the plan involved in each of the crop insurance 
contracts hitherto written, however, the insurance an acre determines 
not only the size of the indemnities that will occur, but also the 
number of cases in which indemnity will be due. To insure the 
corn fields in a given State or locality at $24 an acre, or the equiva- 
lent in a stipulated yield, obviously involves not only twice, but many 
times, the risk involved in insuring the same fields at $12 an acre. 
From the farmer's standpoint the chance of collecting all or a part 
of the second $12 an acre would be several times the probability of 
collecting any part of the first $12. The wise farmer, therefore, 
when he buys insurance under this plan, will buy as much an acre 
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