There are methods of practice which are entirely irra-
tional, and contribute to the real losses of fertility. Farm-
ing is unprofitable, not altogether because the land is
esdiausted, but because only those crops are grown which
possess a high fertility value, and which have a low market
price, and thus the prices received for the constituents
in the crop are actually less than they cost in land and
in labor ; and these methods of practice are not confined
to farmers whose lands of inexhaustible fertility have
been given them by a generous government, but are fol-
lowed by farmers who annually purchase commercial fer-
tilizers to supply the losses of fertility thus sustained.
Where the conditions are such as to make it imprac-
ticable to grow and sell crops, as such, of a low fertility
value, the producer should endeavor to sell the manu-
factured rather than raw materials, — that is, to so use
his crude products as to lower the quantity of the con-
stituents contained in those sold, which explains, in part,
the greater success in the long run of a mixed husbandry,
rather than single-crop farming.
