Large barns and shelter for help being unnecessary, he can live in a cheap shack till he accumulates enough for proper buildings.  Many of the successful vacant lot farmers live in a tent or in shanties made of old boxes and such like.

Of course, if we have the knowledge and ability and the capital and can give it the attention, it is more profitable to cultivate on a large scale than on a small one, because in that case each worker necessarily produces more than he gets as wages—­and we pocket the difference.

Most American farmers are holding land that somebody ought to pay them a bonus for working, else they must come out of the little end of the horn.  They get poor or poorly situated land, because it costs less, and then put three or four hundred dollars’ worth of labor and money a year into the land and take out four or five hundred dollars’ worth of crops.

The farmer thinks he must have big fields to feed his cattle, and that he must have cattle to keep the big fields fertilized, so he raises hay.

In that he makes two mistakes; hay, like most other low-priced crops, is risky—­the cost of harvesting is high and the margin of profit small.  A week of wet weather at cutting time or the impossibility of getting enough men and machines in the week when it should be cut, may make a loss.

But the scientific dairy man does not take that risk, nor let his cattle use up this fodder by wandering over the fields in search of tid-bits of grass or clover, or, goaded by the flies, trampling more grass than they eat and wasting their manure.

He keeps the cows in cool sheds, feeds them on cut fodder, and saves every ounce of the manure.

The modern cow is a ruminating machine for producing milk and cares little for exercise and needs little.  To exploit the cattle as employers exploit the factory hands, he gives the cows a cool, shady place and food, and they stand there all day long to their profit and his.

(United States Agricultural Bulletin No. 22 says:  “The New Jersey Experiment Station has been conducting a practical trial in soiling dairy cows for a number of years past, and finds that complete soiling is entirely practicable, i.e. that green foliage crops may serve as the sole food of the dewy herd, aside from the grain ration, without injury to the animals and with a considerable saving in the cost of milk.

“Under the soiling system a large number of animals can be kept upon a given acreage and by allowing open-air exercises in a large yard or pasture the practice has been demonstrated as entirely feasible for dairy animals.

“One acre of soiling crops produced sufficient fodder for an equivalent of 3 cows for six months.  Rye, corn, crimson clover, alfalfa, oats and peas, and millets have been found to furnish food more economically than any other green crops in that locality.  A grain rotation was always fed in addition to the soiling crops.”)