The Colorado statesman., 1916-09-23
WASTE LANDS COSTLY
"Loafer" Acres Are a Dead Loss
to the Farmer.
An Acre of Land Is Eaten Up by Every
214 Rods of the Old-Fashioned
Zigzag Rail Fence.

1t takes only 214 rods of the old
fashioned zigzag rail fence, once SO
common in the country and still seen
on many farms, to waste an acre of
what might be productive land. 1t
takes only 209 rods of untrimmed
hedge to waste an acre of what other
wise might be productive land. For
the same expenditure of land one can
run 459 rods of woven wire and 473
rods of barbed wire fence.
These calculations have been made
by Uncle Sam and are embodied in a
farmers bulletin recently issued. The
conclusion is reached in this bulletin
that many farmers would make more
money if their business were larger
but that the size of farm, from a
financial standpoint, is measured not
by the number of acres embraced in
it, but by the number that are pro-
ducing crops, pasturing animals eco
nomically, or supporting a growth of
marketable forest products. Nonpro-
ductive acres are loafer acres, it is
pointed out, and the money tied up in
them is dead capital.
Farm lanes often may be eliminated
by simple Encouragement of fields,
headlands, or turning spaces at the
edges of fields, avoided, and the farm
stead itself, the group of farm build
ings with their lots and yards, the
garden and the orchard, made COM
pact. In the case of the farmstead,
however, considerations of health and
attractiveness may well justify
slight sacrifice of economy.
Obviously, the higher the price of
land rises the more incentive there
is for the farmer to avoid waste in
however, that irrespective of the price,
tenants put greater part of their
land to productive use than owners.
The tenant pays rent for each acre
and he cannot afford to have any of
them idle. On the other hand, the
man who has no rent to pay may be
able to get along on the produce of
part only of his farm, and he is, there
fore, more likely to overlook the poten-
tial value of the part he wastes. By
so doing he is, of course, throwing
W
but this is not always appreciated by
those who have not grasped the impor-
tant fact that in the majority of cases
to increase the size of the farm busi-
ness is to increase the profits from it.
Those owners, however, who, realizing
this, are operating leased land in ad-
dition to their own, are, like tenants,
careful to see that they pay for no
lOafer acres.
To anyone who is buying or leasing
land, then, it is pointed out, the impor-
tant question is not show much am 1
paying an acre for this tract?" but
''hOw much am / paying for the acres
that are going to work for me?" In
the new bulletin it is calculated that
farm Of 100 acres selling at 500
an acre will cost the purchaser actu-
ally SILL an acre If 80 per cent
of 1t is productive and 5000 an acre If
only 80 per cent of 1t is. AS mat
ter of fact, the percentage of improved
land in farms east of the Mississippi
Is only sos and west of that river only
sos. Improved land, however, is not
always the same as productive land.
A good timber lot, for example, is not
improved, but it may be highly produc-
tive, and farm buildings and fences
stand on land that is improved but
produces nothing. In the final an
alysis, it is the amount of productive
land that determines the earning ca
pacity of a farm and that should,
therefore, determine its price.