FARM CROPS
Every crop of the farm has been changed and improved in many ways since its forefathers were wild plants. Those plants that best serve the needs of the farmer and of farm animals have undergone the most changes and have received also the greatest care and attention in their production and improvement.
While we have many different kinds of farm crops, the cultivated soil of the world is occupied by a very few. In our country the crop that is most valuable and that occupies the greatest land area is generally known as the grass crop. Included in the general term "grass crop" are the grasses and clovers that are used for pasturage as well as for hay. Next to grass in value come the great cereal, corn, and the most important fiber crop, cotton, closely followed by the great bread crop, wheat. Oats rank fifth in value, potatoes sixth, and tobacco seventh. (These figures are for 1913.)
Success in growing any crop is largely due to the suitableness of soil and climate to that crop. When the planter selects both the most suitable soil and the most suitable climate for each crop, he gets not only the most bountiful yield from the crop but, in addition, he gets the most desirable quality of product. A little careful observation and study soon teach what kinds of soil produce crops of the highest excellence. This learned, the planter is able to grow in each field the several crops best adapted to that special type of soil. Thus we have tobacco soils, trucking soils, wheat and corn soils. Dairying can be most profitably followed in sections where crops like cowpeas, clover, alfalfa, and corn are peculiarly at home. No one should try to grow a new crop in his section until he has found out whether the crop which he wants to grow is adapted to his soil and his climate.
Fig. 182. Alfalfa in the Stack
This is the second cutting of the season
The figures below give the average amount of money made annually an acre on our chief crops:
Flowers and plants, $1911; nursery products, $261; onions, $140; sugar cane, $55; small fruits, $110; hops, $175; vegetables, $78; tobacco, $80; sweet potatoes, $55; hemp, $53; potatoes, $78; sugar beets, $54; sorghum cane, $22; cotton, $22; orchard fruits, $110; peanuts, $21; flax-seed, $14; cereals, $14; hay and forage, $11; castor beans, $6 (United States Census Report).