king agriculture, in its
form of enterprise, more and more like manufacturing and commercial
undertakings.

Sec. 5. #Diversified versus specialized farming#. To be self-sufficing a
farming family must carry on general farming, that is, must produce
a diversity of products. As farming becomes more commercialized it
necessarily becomes somewhat more specialized, and produces a smaller
variety of products. In some parts of the country and on particular
farms this specialization is extreme: in California, citrus fruits, or
prunes, or beans, may be the only crop raised; wheat in Kansas and
the Dakotas, and dairy products in thousands of farms surrounding
the great cities, are the main, tho not the exclusive products. Many
farmers in these districts have no gardens or orchards, keep no cow,
and buy much or all of the grain for their horses, as well as milk,
butter, vegetables and fruits for their own use. Poultry and eggs
are shipped in trainloads two thousand miles from the Middle West to
California to be consumed by orange growers. Many farmers in the East
no longer keep sheep, pigs, or beef cattle, and they buy out of the
butcher's wagon all the meat except fowls used by their families. This
partly explains the decrease of live stock in the whole country in
recent years and the increase in the price of meat.

Sec. 6. #Conditions favoring diversified farming#. There are, however,
limits to the net advantage of specialization in crops, and competent
authorities on agriculture question whether in many cases that limit
has not been readied and passed. Most farms have a variety of soils
and of conditions--hilltops, slopes, bottom lands--which are suitable
for different purposes. A rotation of crops is necessary to get good
yields. Live stock must be kept to maintain the fertility of the land,
which deteriorates fast if hay and grain are continually sold. Some
live stock can be kept on every farm very cheaply with the food that
would go to waste otherwise. The specialization in stock raising in
the prairie states ceased to be profitable when lands became more
valuable. Specialization in wheat production in the states just west
of the Mississippi is possible only so long as wheat will grow on
the virgin soil without costly fertilizers. The cotton farmers of
the South, especially the negro farmers, have been forced by debt and
thriftlessness into a one-crop policy that is now seen to be wasteful
in the long run. A variety of pro