Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1916-09-29
WASTE LAND EXPENSIVE.
NonprOductive Acres Represent
Dead Capital and Are a Loss.

Every acre of producing tillable
land should be put TO work or sold, says
a new publication OF the department,
Farmers Bulletin 745. Many farmers
would make more money if their busi-
ness were larger, but the size of farm
from financial standpoint, is measur-
ed not by the number of acres embrac-
ed in it but by the number that are
producing crops, pasturing animals
economically, or supporting growth of
marketable forest products. Nonproduc-
tive acres are loafer acres, and the
money tied up in them is dead capital.
On every farm, however, there are
certain areas necessarily devoted to
nonproductive purposes. Fences,
bitches, lanes, and building lots produce
nothing themselves, but they are
frequently essential to production on
the rest of the farm. Nevertheless,
they may occupy in the aggregate a
considerable percentage of the available
land. 1t is a part OF efficient farm
management to see to it that this per-
centage is no higher than necessary.
In this connection, some interesting
figures are given by the bulletin al
ready mentioned in regard to the
amount of land occupied by fences of
different kinds. 1t takes, for instance,
only 209 rods of untrimmed hedge and
only PA rods of zigzag rail or worm
fence to waste an acre OF what might
be productive land. For the same eX-
penditure Of land one can run 459 rods
of woven wire and 473 rods of barbed
wire. Other considerations, of course,
may make it desirable to use the hedge
or the worm fence, but the waste in
voved is factor that should not be
overlooked.
Similarly, farm lanes often may be
eliminated by simple Encouragement
of fields; headlands, or turning spaces
at the edges of fields, avoided; and the
farmstead itself-the group of farm
buildings 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.
While a little planning often will
result in the saving of much land now
devoted to these unproductive uses, a
more difficult problem is presented by
waste of land-land that is rendered
untillable by swamps, ravines, rocks,
slopes, ETC., woodland that produces
nothing salable, and pastures that are
too poor to be profitable. Some areas
are, of course, hopeless, and in that
case they should be left out of the
reckoning altogether. Before this is
done, however, it will pay to look into
the possibilities of profitable reclama-
ton. Many untillable fields, for ex-
ample may be turned into productive
pastures, or, if they will not grow
enough grass to make this economical,
they can be used for the production OF
timber. On the other hand, it frequent
ly happens that woodlots which yield
nothing but little firewood for home
consumption are permitted to occupy
valuable land. In deciding whether
such lots should be cleared and titled,
the cost of clearing, the increased
value of the cleared land, the interest
on the investment, the salable value OF
the timber products, and the added
expense for firewood which will follow
the disappearance of the timber must
all be taken into account With un.
wooded areas, the advisability of bring.
ing them under the pillow may be de.
termined by comparing the probable
cost with the market price of good
arabic land in the neighborhood.
Obviously, the higher the price Of land
rises the more incentive there is for the
farmer to avoid waste in the utilization
of it. II is significant, however, that
the investigations Of the department