The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-23

moderate degree of affluence. says the
Live Stock and Western Farm Jour
nal. There are a variety of reasons
for this which will rapidly occur to the
reader, among them being the general
unwisdom of putting all ones eggs in
one basket An adverse season. price
at a point below cost of production, and
various contingencies that are likely to
occur are liable to leave the farmer
who depends almost exclusively on
single product in a very unhappy con-
dition, whereas when his dependence is
upon many things misfortuneS as to
one of them are misfortunes. it is true,
but they are not fatal. For example,
the man who depends solely on hogs
has made a very bad year of it if the
cholera struck his herd, as is most
likely during the past year, and the
man who relied on potatoes was in a
condition that is not much better. Corn
and oats, too, at the figures at which
they are quoted do not afford much
encouragement. 1T is a fact that staple
crops-that is those that come nearest
being necessaries of life-are, as a rule,
the least remunerative, and more
money is made out of the products
that are comforts and still more out
of luxuries.
Large diversity, too, affords oppor-
tunity for employment more likely to
continue throughout ali the seasons.
The ideal conditions, as respects the
crop to be grown, would be such a Sc
lection as would afford fairly busy
days throughout the year a farmer
relying on wheat, alone, for example,
would be busy for brief period at
seed time and harvest but for large
part of the year would be idle. Even
with good market price he could
hardly expect to make much money,
because he has not done much work
although he may have worked hard
when the work was on. Diversity also
gives large opportunity for rotation
Which shall maintain and even increase
the fertility Of the farm Cropping the
staples alone is soil robbery, not pun
iShable in the penitentiary. it is true
but which brings it's punishment by
eventually leaving the farmer in
very penitential mood as he sees his
annual yield per acre diminish. With
few well selected crops a fair rota-
ton can be provided, and the larger
the diversity the better the rotation
can be made. Large diversity makes
less to buy and hence leaves a larger
net income. A writer in these columns
speaks of having investigated the local
grocery business at his town, with the
result that he found farmers six and
eight miles distant large habitual buy
ers of ali the comnoner vegetables,
the cultivation of which had been neg
neCted in order that they might grow
more seventeen-cent corn and ten and
eleven-cent oats We all know that
however little a producer may get for
these products, it does not take long to
spend the price of an acre of corn
in them at a town grocery.
While the staple crops are always
cheap and are sold by the farmer at
wholesale, the purchases for his own
use being made at retail, exclusive
growing of the minor and less common
ly cultivated crops, even under the
most favorable circumstances, often
entails loss, yet whole communities fire.
quently practice it. An example of this
is found this year in the noted Weld
county, Colorado, potato district. The
yield and quality of the potatoes that
come from Greeley, Colo, is a matter
OF general notoriety, but while the fin
est potatoes in the world will continue
TO be grown there, the people of the
sectlon have learned a lesson during
the past year in relation to diversifi-
cation of crops that they will not soon
forget. They were leaning on a single
staff, and the staff broke. All over the
country farmers are leaning on single
Stairs in the same way and they are
continually breaking. The remedy for
1t is the widest diversity of crops of
which ones situation admits. The
reader will do well to give the subject
some thought in making his plans for
the coming season.