The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-10-07
CHANGES Of CROP
ONLY "SALv Walton"
OF FARMER IN ]. S,
Diversified Farming, Increas-
ed Yield of Crops and Bet
ter Live Stock, Point Out
Way.

Farmers are finding that they must
20 in for diversified farming, must in
crease the yield of the crops they have,
combine field crops with live stock,
grow the stock best suited to condi-
tions, learn to fertilize their soil and
to market their crops intelligently.
Such are the conclusions of national
and state Investigations. In an article
in the Technical World, F. G.. Moore
head gives figures Of the department
of agriculture that show $11.15 as the
wheat, while the average amount Of
14.1 bushels to the acre. At 80 cents
q bushel this is a profit of ID cents an
acre. Corn costs $12.27 an acre, and
in the last ten years has averaged
profit Of rs cents an acre. Oats IN ten
years has averaged loss Of rs cents
an acre, the cost being $10.66 an acre.
Labor is figured as the largest cost
item. But there are rent and interest.
II it were not that the farmer is being
paid for his own labor and gets his
own interest where he is an owner, his
returns would be so small as to dis
courage him from continuing. All this
has been learned from bookkeeping.
The result is a change, Mr.. Moorhead
says, that is like a revolution. 1t in
cludes increasing the yield of the
grain crops, planting diversified crops
instead Of wheat, corn and oats, and
raising live stock. Extreme specialize
ing has not been profitable. The farm
err is becoming manufacturer by
which he converts his "roughage" and
waste into beef, mutton and pork.
Small farms in New York show that
30 per cent Of profits comes from live
stock. The country over, IS per cent
is set down as the average. An aver
age steer in Wisconsin with beef at
cents a pound produces a profit OF
1894 an acre. Minnesota and North
Dakota experiments show $3.50 worth
of mil kproduct from cows, which,
counting out the cost Of pasturage,
leaves 1920 to the acre. A table, based
on official state and national expert
ments and returns, shows the cOmpar-
alive acre profit Of the grain farmer
and the livestock farmer: Wheat, 13
cents; corn, 26 cents; dairy cattle,
1920; beef cattle, 1894; swine, $40;
oats, loss of 25 cents an acre.
But there Is also the loss Of soil de-
pletion Experiments at the Missouri
agricultural college show that ton OF
timothy. removes as much from the
soil as do twelve tons of butter. The
former sells for SO. The latter for
fran $1,000 to $4,000. A ton of pork
removes $50 Of fertility fro man acre
But it sells for $11.40, while ton of
butter, which sells for $470, removes
only u cents worth of fertility, so
that butter farmer will requires 238
years to remove as much as a grain
farmer removes every year. The Iowa
college showed that unused cornstalks
wasted $3.50 an acre year. The
remedy for the latter is the silo, of
which fifteen thousand were manufac-
tured last year. 1t preserves the en-
tire plant and stops the waste Of 40
per cent of the feeding value of the
plant. The conclusion is that there
should be an increase in the grain
product to the acre and the use of live
stock for saving the waste and increas-
ing the yield.