Systems of Farm Management in the United States

Excerpt from the Introduction: The most successful system of farming is that which gives the largest profit, leaves the soil in condition to yield maximum crops, and brings to the farmer and those dependent on him the largest measure of happiness. In conducting a farm upon such a system, the farmer must continually answer for himself the questions: What crops shall I grow and what area of each? What care shall I give these crops and the soil upon which they grow? What disposition shall be made of the produce of the fields? If the crops are to be sold, then when and where? If they are to be fed, then to what classes of stock and to what number? What manures and fertilizers shall be applied to the soil, to what crops, in what season, in what quantities? What provision shall be made for the protection of growing crops from insect pests and fungous diseases, for storing crop products, for the protection and care of live stock? When and where shall live stock and their products be marketed? The repeated answering of these and other similar questions constitutes farm management—a business in which is found the application of many sciences, but a business so broad and complex that it must rest mainly on the accumulated experience of generations of those who have followed it. Conditions of climate, proximity to market, the character of farm labor, social conditions, and that great enigma, the soil, have all been determining factors in the development of the systems of farming that have been gradually evolved in the various sections of the country.