Every farm should raise all its feed stuffs.
In deciding what forage and grain crops to grow we should decide:

1. The crops best suited to our soil and climate.
2. The crops best suited to our line of business.
3. The crops that will give us the most protein.
4. The crops that produce the most.
5. The crops that will keep our soil in the best condition.

1. _The crops best suited to our soil and climate._ Farm crops, as every
child of the farm knows, are not equally adapted to all soils and
climates. Cotton cannot be produced where the climate is cool and the
seasons short. Timothy and blue grass are most productive on cool,
limestone soils. Cowpeas demand warm, dry soils. But in spite of
climatic limitations, Nature has been generous in the wide variety of
forage she has given us.

Our aim should be to make the best use of what we have, to improve by
selection and care those kinds best adapted to our soil and climate, and
to secure, by better methods of growing and curing, the greatest yields
at the least possible cost.

2. _The crops best suited to our line of business._ A farmer necessarily
becomes more or less of a specialist; he gathers those kinds of live
stock about him which he likes best and which he finds the most
profitable. He should, on his farm, select for his main crops those that
he can grow with the greatest pleasure and with the greatest profit.

[Illustration: FIG. 275. FILLING THE BARN WITH ROUGHAGE FROM THE FARM]

The successful railroad manager determines by practical experience what
distances his engines and crews ought to run in a day, what coal is most
economical for his engines, what schedules best suit the needs of his
road, what trains pay him best. These and a thousand and one other
matters are settled by the special needs of his road.

Ought the man who wants to make his farm pay be less prudent and less
far-sighted? Should not his past failures and his past triumphs decide
his future? If he be a dairy farmer, ought he not by practical tests to
settle for himself not only what crops are most at home on his land but
also what crops in his circumstances yield him the largest returns in
milk and butter? If swine-raising be his business, how long ought he to
guess what crop on his land yields him the greatest amount of hog food?
Should a colt be fed on one kind of forage when the land that produced
that forage would produce twice as much equally good forage of another
kind?