THE PROFITS OF FARMING.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 25, 16 September 1893, Page 3

THE PROFITS OF FARMING.

The profits from farming are gained only from the best things produced. If anyone wishes (writes the Australasian) to know the differences in the returns obtained from raising the different qualities of sheep, or cattle, or any other kind of stock, let him take any market report and see the top and bottom quotations, The best cost little if any more to raise, in the hands of those who know how, than the worst, but the one brings three times the price of the other. In regard to crops it is well for the farmer to test the capacity of an acre, and find out how much of this or that it can be made to produce. The size of a crop is one thing and the profit of it is another. The soil can be overstocked with fertilisers, and the plants thereby over-fed. The crop may be larger

than the average, but it may have cost many times more than the average to produce. The farmer who is striving for the most I income from the least outlay* or, in other words, the greatest profit from his acres, must count his investments in (money and time, and apply only enough manure seed, labour, and attention to give the best returns for energy expended. Successive trials will decide what these should be respectively. It will pay one man in one locality to so enrich his soil and tend, say, bis wheat crops that they will yield 30 bushels, but another farmer on another soil in a different locality may lose money if lie tries to grow more than 15. The same principles apply to dairying. What is the use in keeping and milking a cow that only yields lOOlbs of butter per year, when a little more care and outlay for food would give a return of 2001bs per cow ? Do not say this cmnot be done, for there are several herds to my knowledge that average this yield for the whole number kept, and when the conditions are similar there is no good reason, except lack of push, why the same results cannot be obtained elsewhere. Rut farming is a business, and not a game of “ get the biggest crop,” no matter by what means.