Norwich bulletin., 1915-11-27
INTENSIVE FARMING PRACTICALLY
 CONSIDERED

acre ten good loads of your own stable manure, worth s10 of any mans money; had top dressed with half a ton of ground lime worth, say, $1.50 more; had cultivated five times in- stead of twice, at an increased labor cost therefor of $2.25-and had by these means increased the yield of that acre to just double, to forty bush els instead of twenty. The increased cost of the intenser cultivation would have been $1375 which added to the original cost of $11 makes $2475. But the income from 40 bushels at 75 cents a bushel would be $50, or $5.25 profit, which is $1.25 more than that from the slack cultivated acre.
 1t is certainly better to have S5.25 than to have s4. But that small sum of money will really be the least inn portant profit from the intenser cul- tivation. The ground will have been put in vastly better shape and heart for the following crop be it oats or potatoes or clover You will be able to see and feel the benefits of your maturing and tillage for several years to come. The land, instead of being impoverished by the small crop taken off it under hit-or-miss methods, will actually have been enriched, despite the removal of a larger crop. The acre will be worth more, not only that year, but the next year and still others.
 l'Il admit that this is all "s'posin'" thus far. Fortunately, there are some statistics available in regard to this very corn crop which careful students of the situation have been able to gather and apply to actual conditions.
 These statistics indicate that, taking the country as a whole, the total cost of getting a 25 bushel yield per acre is about $17.15, while the like cost for producing 50 bushel yield is about S21.
 This makes the cost, per bushel, of 25 bushel crop about 6S cents, and the similar cost of a 50 bushel crop about 42 cents. The average farm price of corn, the country over is about 50 cents. Thus it will be seen that a 25 oushel yield means a net loss of $2 per acre, while 50 bushel yield means net profit of $9.SO per acre.
 Of course. these figures are averages and are not to be understood as apply ing exactly to any one farm or any one crop. In my own case, my personal experience leads me to think that the statistical cost of $17.15 per acre for raising 25 bushel crop is larger than it should be. I am sure I can raise such a crop for less. Likewise the in crease of less than S4 an acre, stated | as the average cost of doubling the crop, is less than I can do it for. I
 
 S4 per acre for the extra fertilizer and tillage which intensive farming pre- supposes. On the other hand, I should expect to get a good deal more than 50 bushels per acre from an intensively farmed corn field
 The whole matter sinners down to the simple question Of profit; which method of farming pays the highest percentage and gives the largest net profit.
 It would be poor business and show bad Judgment to adopt an expensive system of farming if such a system didn't bring in more money than the one it supplants. Contrawise, if the spending of more money and labor re- suits in the bringing back of larger profits. it would be equally bad busi- ness and show equally poor judgment to refuse to spend the additional l money.
 # any of my readers have a rooted prejudice against intensive farming B one so deeply seated that they can't overcome it and don't want to try, I should not advise them to make any moves in that direction.
 But if one simply hasn't thought much about it-hasn't stopped to figure out probabiltitio d?oitrtg . . out probabilities-hasn't troubled to