The Brookhaven leader., 1884-03-13
Wheat and Corn Growing.

1t is not often the statement is made
that the largest production of crops is
not necessarily the most profitable; in
fact, the tendency is to urge high farm
ing by thorough cultivation and by the
free use of fertilizers, without carefully
cons dering the relations between the
cost of such high farming and the value
of the crop obtained. Prof. Jordan, Of
the Pennsylvania State College, re"
Gently said in regard to the question.
"How can the production of cereal
crops be economically increased?" that
the profits coming from increased pro-
duction rapidly decrease or stop when
that increase reaches certain moder-
ate number. 1.-The maximum crop that
is profitable will vary with soil and To-
cality. Tho area of farm land in Penn
sylvania that can be made to yield
profitably more than thirty-iive bushels
of wheat to the acre is very limited in
most localities. Every bushel above
that yield will cost in time and fertiiiz-
ers more than its value. 1t is unbusi-
ness-ike to strain every point for a
large crop when smaller one will
bring greater profit"
During nineteen years the reported
wheat yield of Pennsylvania has never
exceeded sixteen bushels per acre, and
has often fallen far below that. The
average cost of production, as reported.
was S27.11 per acre for wheat and
S2239 for corn, but these figures, Prof.
Jordan thinks, are too high. On the
college farm carefully kept accounts
showed an average cost or S11.2O for
wheat and S10.l9 for corn production.
Adding interest and taxes would bring
these figures up to $lS and 81 per acre
respectively. A crop of less than eighteen
bushels of wheat or of thirty-tiEe BUSH
els of shelled corn per acre would not
balance this outlay. Considering these
two crops by themselves, and not as
part of a system of rotation, they are
produced at loss.
While he does not intimate that "a
little farm well TILED may be more
profitable. under some circumstances,
Prof. Jordan sees that there are grave
object; Ons to the solution offered by
many authorities of the problem of
growing grain profitaH ly. 'lf a farmer
can cultivate the many acres in a slip
shed way only, and can find paving
employment for his working force when
not engaged at home, he had bett re-
duce his area of tiled land and let a
p 1T lie id'e rather than cultivate it at a
los. BIT he can no. always convert
the tine of his men and ans in o
cash, and, in such case, it would be b t.
t.r to get small pay for tilling the large
ar a. Small areas well TILED are m re
suitable to the faI mer who depends al
m st entirely on hired labor.
"The grave objection to this solution
is that with small areas the possibilities
of business successes in agriculture are
limited. The possible profits on ten
acres a~e twice as great as the profits
from five acres under similar conditions.
Agriculture offers no exception TO the
general rule that a small business pays
small gross profits. "A little farm well
Tiled is not a sound MAXIM for grain
farmers. They need to work their
farms harder for an increase of produc-
ton on increasing areas. His land and
buildings are the farmers fixed capital.
His stock, machinery and the money
used in his business are his floating cap
ital, and this last is often too small
when compared with the fist. If it be
objected that many famers own their
farms, and that is about all, the answer
must be that their lack of capital is just
as fatal to the highest success in farm
ing as it is in other business. Large
Income only comes from the investment
of large capital. Chicago Tribune.