OCR Text |
Show Sound Farm Plan Will Get Results Careful Records of Cost and Production Is Recommended. Rec-ommended. By R. H. ROGERS. Department of Agricultural Agri-cultural Economics. North Carolina State College. WMJ Service. A farm broken up into small, poorly poor-ly shaped fields on which no systematic systemat-ic crop rotation is practiced usually does not pay. When such farms have been reorganized, better results have been secured. This is the finding of the North Carolina Car-olina experiment station in reorganizing reorganiz-ing several farms at the request of owners in both Piedmont and eastern North Carolina. We have analyzed a number of farms where we found x fields about three acres in size and no definite crop rotation followed. A sound cropping plan is impossible on such small, numerous fields and as a result production costs are high. Cover Cov-er crops needed to reduce erosion and soil building legume crops are generally gen-erally absent from the farming program pro-gram and most of the plant food has to be bought each year. On such farms we find the labor to be overworked during a few months and practically idle for other long periods. The experience of past years in reorganizing re-organizing farms shows first the necessity ne-cessity of an inventory of all property; prop-erty; next, the need of a detailed map of the farm ; third, a definite cropping plan, which may be changed as needed; need-ed; fourth, fields rearranged to suit the cropping plan adopted ; fifth, addition addi-tion of live stock according to the amount of feed produced and sixth, a budget of production and farm Income. A simple farm record should be kept of returns from fields and crops and the outlook Information Issued each spring should be carefully studied. By following these general plans, it has been possible to increase farm earnings from 10 to 20 per cent |