Cheyenne transporter. [volume] (Darlington, Indian Terr.) 1879-1886, 1886-01-28
FARM MANAGEMENT.
Small Farms Not Generally Better TILED or
More Productive Than Larger Ones
Peach Raising i'm Georgia
Is the Little Farm Well Tilled9

about the increase in the size of farms
in several of the states. In few in
stances attempts have been made to
limit by legislation the size of farms
owned and managed by one person.
Newspapers have published sensation
al articles on ''bonanza farming" and
an attempt has been made to show that
the prosperity of the country was en-
dangered by having large bodies of
land pass under the management of
few enterprising farmers who pos
sessed sufficient capital to manage
them by means of rnachines and hired
labor. There was great rejoicing in
some parts of the country when many
of the large planters in the south were
compelled to divide their estates. 1t
was thought that the same amount of
land would be much more productive
when owned and managed by several
individuals than it was under the con-
troll of one person. Some who travelled
through the south wrote about the
slovenly kept large farms and the tidy
little farms they saw. Attention has
also been directed many times to the
finely managed and very productive
small farms in the New England and
middle states. Their condition and
productiveness has been contrasted
with those of the large farms in the
valley of the Mississippi and on the
Pacific slope.
Most of the writers on economic sub
jects in this country, from Franklin to
Greeley, have advocated small farms,
and they have endeavored to show
that they were much better titled than
very large farms. Every few years
we read of some man who, having be-
come convinced that he had more land
than he could profitably manage, sold
half of it, and found that he raised
more on the part that remained than
he had formerly produced on the
whole. AS is the case with many
newspaper stories written for the pur-
pose of "drawing moral the name
and postofiice address of this farmer
were not given. 1t would probably be
as difficult to find him as it would to
hunt up the person who was cured of
consumption by the use of some patent
medicine whose healing power he had
commended to his fellow sufferers.
The persons who advocate small farm
ing for the reason that it increases pro-
ductlon were greatly pleased with the
book which appeared few years ago,
entitled Ten Acres Enough" They
were answered by pleasant little
publication called Five Acres Too
Much" But they have kept up their
advocacy of small farms, as essential
to great productiveness, ever since.
People who start out with pet theory
are seldom on the lookout for facts,
as their collection and classification
have resulted in overturning many
theories.
Lately the advocates of "sm all
holdings" have become numerous in
England, the land of large farms.
They have attempted to show that the
small farms OF France, Switzerland,
and some other countries on the con-
tinent WEIR very productive and prOti-
table, and that their farmers were pros
porous, happy, and generally out of
debt The condition of their families
was represented AS excellent. Much
has also been written about the pros
porous condition of farmers in certain
parts of the British islands where the
divisions of land among owners aud
tenants are very small. These state
ments having been made SO often nu-
merous persons have examined into
the matter. Their reports are by no
means favorable to the division of land
into very small farms. They state
that the yield per acre of almost every
kind of crop is much smaller on very
small farms than on the larger ones,
apparently showing that the former
are not as well titled. They also show
that the cost of production is largely
increased by the division of land into
small farms. This is accounted for