Yol lx. No. 2686. 
NEW YORK, JULY 20, 1901. 
J1 PER YEAP . 
BIG PROFITS IN FARMING. 
WHAT A CHICAGO CITY FARMER DOES. 
Is His Plan Practical? 
We have received the following note from a good 
friend in Canada: 
“In the 'Saturday Evening Post of June 8, page 8, 
an article appeared on ‘Big Profits of Twentieth Cen¬ 
tury Farmers.’ So bright a view of what is coming, 
if not indeed actually available now by good manage¬ 
ment, might serve to dispel the gloom resulting from 
such long continued rain and absence 
of sunshine. The contrast between that 
article and Hope Farm Notes is very 
striking. There must be some mistake 
on the one side or tne other. According 
to one farming is as easy as turning 
your hand over, if you will but adopt 
and stick to a simple rule or two, while 
the other would have you believe that 
you will meet lions on the path at every 
turn, so that you never can tell where 
you are going to come out. There is all 
the difference between the two that 
there is between a fancy picture and the 
plain homely reality of everyday life, 
or between prose and poetry.” w. o. e. 
The article in question was written by 
S. W. Allerton, who operates farms by 
telegraph, mail and telephone from the 
city. He says he has over 40,000 acres 
in careful cultivation, and about the 
same area in grass. There are over 70 
different farms, each managed by a fore¬ 
man and reached by long-distance tele¬ 
phone. Mr. Allerton says he has one 
farm of 3,600 acres which cost him $70 
per acre, and which paid $37,000 pi-ofit 
in one year. A fair statement of what 
the author claims may be found in the 
following quotation: 
“Here is my allotment for a farm of 
160 acres: Ten acres for buildings, gar¬ 
den patch and a field of mangel-wurzel 
beets; 60 acres for pasture; 60 acres for 
corn; 30 acres for oats. In the second 
year these crops should be shifted, pas¬ 
ture and grass lands being turned over 
for cereals. The beets should cs fed to 
sheep and hogs, and as much will be 
realized from the sale of wool, lambs 
and hogs, under this system, as would 
otherwise be secured from the entire 
product of the farm. The showing made 
by an intelligent following of this plan 
should be fully as good as this: From 
sale of wool, $100; lambs, $500; hogs, 
$500; corn, $900; oats, $200; total, $2,200. 
“This allows for feeding 1,500 bushels 
of corn out of a crop of 4,500 bushels; 
the corn being figured at 30 cents a 
bushel, and the yield at 75 bushels an 
acre. The number of lambs in this esti¬ 
mate is 100, and hogs 50. Placing the 
farmer’s outlay for expenses at $700, 
this leaves him $1,500 clear. I believe 
this to be a very conservative estimate 
of what any good farm may be made to pay, for I 
have generally exceeded this figure in the net re¬ 
sults of my farming.” 
Mr. Allerton talks as though this ought to be done 
on any farm. Of course, he is referring to the Middle 
West and, we presume, to level land of good quality. 
No doubt the Hope Farm man will have his say later 
regarding this rosy-cheeked view of agriculture. We 
have asked for the views of some thoughtful eastern 
wen who have had experience at farming, and a good 
chaaca to qbaerye actqal conditions. We print letters 
this week from two of them. We consider it wise to 
get down close to the actual condition of farming as 
a business that we may hunt for the influences, if 
there be any, that operate against the farmer. 
PENNSYLVANIA COMMENTS.—It is always well 
to have in mind the possibilities which well-directed 
effort along any particular line of work may reach, 
yet these same possibilities should be kept entirely 
distinct, and considered entirely separate from the 
probable returns which will accrue from well-directed 
efforts of any considerable number of men who are 
recognized in a sense as leaders in their respective 
vocations. It must be admitted that the conditions 
under which Mr. Allerton is enabled to conduct his 
farming operations are entirely different from those 
confronting the average farmer of the Middle and 
New England States, and that his operations may be 
carried on under the cpnditions with which he has to 
deal in a much more satisfactory manner from a fin¬ 
ancial standpoint than would be possible on the un¬ 
even land of the Eastern States. It should be remem¬ 
bered that Mr. Allerton’s profits are in no small de¬ 
gree secured from the business of a middleman. By 
virtue of his position he is enabled to save the profits 
which the most successful middleman would make in 
handling like products purchased from farmers 
While Mr. Allerton’s estimate of $1,500 as the net 
profits of a 160-acre farm may be well within the 
range of possibilities, yet if he had given the actual 
returns from a farm of this size for a number of con¬ 
secutive years the figures would undoubtedly have 
carried much more weight. It is undoubtedly true 
that there are many farms in nearly every State that 
produce annually from 160 acres an 
amount that exceeds the prediction of 
Mr. Allerton, yet tnese farms are man¬ 
aged by men who are specialists, and 
cannot be said to belong to the great 
rank of average farmers who practice 
mixed husbandry. There are special¬ 
ists in various lines of farm work who 
are undoubtedly receiving greater in¬ 
come from fewer acres than those stated 
by Mr. Allerton. These undoubtedly 
show the possibility of intensive agri¬ 
culture, yet they should not be placed 
before the average farmer in a way to 
mislead him. The average farmer of 
Pennsylvania and New York who is now 
practicing mixed husbandry will un ■ 
doubtedly accept Mr. Allerton’s estimate 
with a good deal of hesitation. 
[Prof.] O. C. WATSON. 
Penn. Exp. Station. 
THE CONDITION IN MAINE.—Mr. 
Allerton’s article in the Saturday Even¬ 
ing Post is based upon agriculture in 
the West and not in the East, and I do 
not pretend to be familiar with the situ¬ 
ation there, but at this distance the ar¬ 
ticle seems to be largely “buncombe.” 
In his argument for an Illinois farm of 
160 acres, he claims sales from wool, 
lambs, hogs, corn and oats to the amount 
of $2,200, and aside from his own per¬ 
sonal labor he only claims a cost of $700 
to cover interest on investment, taxes, 
machinery, equipment, blacksmith bills, 
hired help, etc. It is doubtful whether 
the high farming which he claims to 
carry on, by which he produces 75 to 
100 bushels of corn per acre, is equaled 
on the best farms in Illinois one year 
with another. While he says he is talk¬ 
ing of ordinary land of Nebraska and 
Illinois, he is not talking of ordinary 
land, but of the very best, and I am 
sure that such land has a high selling 
value there. Is it not true that farm 
land in Illinois that is capable of yiela- 
ing the crops he indicates has a selling 
value of $100 an acre? One hundred and 
sixty acres of land at this price would 
bring $16,000, and four or five per cent 
on such a farm would alone mean as 
much as this $700 which he sets aside 
for total expenses. He speaks of Sum¬ 
mer fallowing as an important part in 
his scheme. But he must know, if he is 
in touch with modern agriculture, that while Sum¬ 
mer fallowing was once the most popular article in 
the creed of the theoretical and practical farmer, this 
practice has gone by, and that land is no longer kept 
in fallow, but is kept covered with some green crop 
as much of the time as possible. 
Aroostook County, in this State, is the only part of 
New England which has conditions at all analogous 
to the West, where farming is carried on with a few 
kinds of crops and on a large scale. While I know of 
some farmers whose cash sales from 200 to 300 acres 
A PIONEER FARMHOUSE IN NEW JERSEY. Fig. 210. 
BARN AND SHED ON A MARSH FARM. Fig. 211. 
