St. Landry democrat., 1886-09-11
COST OF CROPS.
Its EeSsEstion the Leading Requisite Of
the Present Day.


or wheat at from 10 to so per cent. less
than his neighbor, it is easy to see that
one will prosper and the other fail in
his business. I adopted the rule sew
eral years ago of keeping an account
with my leading crops (wheat, corn and
potatoes), and was strongly impressed
with the fact that the cost per bushel
as the yield decreased per acre in
creased. There are some factors of cost
that can not be changed materially; for
example, interest on the money invested
in the land, seed and the ordinary OPP
erations Of blowing and planting, and
these will be about the same whether
we raise ten or thirty bushels of wheat
TO the acre, or twenty-five or seventy
five bushels of corn. Now if we take
$50 an acre as the smallest sum that
Will pay ground rent, seed and labor,
tor growing crop of corn or wheat up
to the time of harvest, it will be seen
that at the lowest yields named the
farmer must receive 81 bushel for
wheat and 40 cents for corn to get
barely paid for his work and invest
ment, and then look to the straw and
cornstalks to pay him for harvesting
the crop. f-as during the last year
the average prices of these crops are
from Is to % per cent. below what
have named, then life becomes a strug-
gle with debt to the farmer who pro-
duces the minimum crops. The most
carefully prepared statistics taken by
both National and State authority show
that the corn crop of the United States
averages but little above thirty bushels
per acre, and the wheat above twelve
bushels.
Conceding those figures to be nearly
accurate, and remembering that large
per cent of farmers produce on an av-
erage from 50 to 100 per cent above
them, we are forced to the conclusion
that an equally large per cent. grow
crops below these averages, and find
no profit whatever in their business,
but merely subsist by practicing an
economy that is almost niggardly. Now
l believe it possible on many farms to
reduce the cost of production of all pro-
duets to some degree and some of them
SO much as one-half, and will try to
show how think it can be done. The
first thing | should say to many farm
ers would be: reduce the area of land
under cultivation. It is the besetting
sin among our Western farmers to
cultivate too much land; 1000 bush
els of corn from twenty acres must
of necessity cost less than the same
grown on thirty acres of the same farm;
and the farmer who can raise 500 BUSH
els Of wheat on twenty acres will realize
a good profit, while his neighbor who
sows from thirty-five to fifty acres to get
the same amount will run behind. Now
these highest averages that I have
are easily within reach Of most
farmers and can be excelled by many.
do not say that the farmer who has
been growing poor crops can at once
change his system so as to increase
them to this extent, but | do believe
there are few farms where the average
yields are now at the minimum ON
which they could not be increased 50
per cent. in less than ten years. One
hopeful feature of this plan of farming
a smaller area and farming it more
that it is one which must
improve the land, while the plan OF
keeping the largest part of the farm
under the pillow necessarily exhausts it.
l have tried during thirty years the
plan of keeping up the soil by buying
manure at the village and also by the
purchase of commercial fertilizers, but
some years ago abandoned them both
IS too expensive, and determined that
he farm must be sef-perpetuating to
The extent of producing its own fertiliz-
ers. and l. have been greatly pleased
With the results. Now the system of
farming which reduces the area under
cultivation enables one to do this in two
ways; first-and the cheapest and best
by growing crops which fertilize; and,
second, by raising stock to consume the
straw, hay and grain, and give large
amount OF manure. Under the system
which / practice on my little farm Of
ninety acres we grow from ten to twenty
acres OF clover every year, which ia
leither cut nor pastured, but allowed to
make all the growth it will from har-
,est until cold weather and then is
bowed down. Unusually make growth
'qual to that in the following June ON
ields that are pastured closely in the
autumn, as is the almost universal prac-
ice of farmers in this locality, and after
careful comparison of its effect upon
he soil estimate its fertilizing value
o average about $12 per acre, by which
mean that it is worth to the crops as
much as dressing of stable manure
vonld be which would cost me $12, il
ought and drawn from the village two
niles distant. Lest this article become
90 long, will condense into sentence
ne means by which we are to increase
ur yield, and thus reduce the cost of
reduction: /. Decrease the area under
III. 4.