THE FARMERS OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE Types of Communities Depending on Plants.—Far more than half the world's inhabitants get their living directly from plants. The lumbermen merely cut the trees that have grown without human care. The primitive tropical farmer sets out a few palm or banana trees, or drops some seeds of pumpkin, yam, or cassava into a hole punched with a stick, and leaves the plants to care for themselves with perhaps a single careless hoeing. His more advanced tropical and sub-tropical neighbors carry on an ancient and painstaking system of irrigation and transplantation in the culture of rice, or else under the guidance of people from cooler climates, cultivate plantations where a single crop, such as cacao, tea or sugar, is raised for distant markets. Outside the tropics many of the farmers likewise devote themselves almost exclu sively to a single crop raised by the so-called " extensive " method of cultivating a large area somewhat carelessly with the aid of nimals or machinery. Another large group are horticulturists or gardeners who raise a variety of vegetables, grains, or fruits, and who cultivate their land intensively without much use of animals. Finally the highest type of farmer cultivates a variety of crops somewhat intensively, and systematically makes the raising and use of animals a part of his farming. Thus we have at least seven types of communities that depend on plants, namely (1) lumbermen, (2) primitive tropical farmers, (3) tropical or sub-tropical rice farmers, (4) tropical planters, (5) one-crop farmers of non-tropical regions, (6) horticulturists or gardeners, and (7) all around farmers. Primitive tropical farmers, though extremely interesting, contribute so little to the world's business that they will not be discussed further. Of the other six types the three from non-tropical regions will be discussed in this chapter, while the two tropical types and lum berers will be left for later chapters.
The Nature of farmer, as the name suggests, relies largely on a single crop, even though he may plant more or less of several others. He generally cultivates this crop by extensive methods; that is, he scatters the seeds over an area too large to permit close attention to the growing crop. Thus the size of his crop is peculiarly dependent upon the weather, and its failure often ruins him. There are many examples of this type of farmer—the cot ton farmers of the southeastern United States, the tobacco farmers of Kentucky and Virginia, the wheat farmers of the Dakotas, southern Russia, and Asia Minor, the rye farmers of central and northern Russia, and the currant farmers of Greece.
Such dependence on a single crop is often, although not always, due to one or both of two main reasons: (1) the crop is supposed to be the most profitable that can he grown in the region in question. This is the case with many of the American one-crop farmers. (2) The people are too inefficient. to attempt a variety of crops because they are deficient in physical vigor, low in mentality, poor in education, or discouraged by social and political conditions. This is common in old countries like Turkey.
One-crop agriculture is subject to at least two great disadvantages. First, crop failures are particularly disastrous, for the farmer has no large second crop to fall back upon. Second, one-crop agriculture has a peculiarly bad effect on the fertility of the soil, for the crop takes away the same plant foods year after year. As few animals are kept, ther is little manure to restore fertility; and periods of rest when the field lie fallow add no new plant foods, although they allow the material already in the soil to become still further weathered and prepare for the plants. Even if fertilizers are imported, the soil of one-cro farms cannot be kept as fertile as that of farms where a wiser system is practiced.
The Business System in One-crop Regions.—In regions where the geographical conditions help to cause one-crop farming to persist f a long time the whole fabric of business is affected. In the first place, the one-crop farmer, like the raisers of animals for meat and wool, makes relatively few demands upon the outside world. He buys, to be sure, a considerable portion of his food. For instance, the southern cotton grower may actually bring corn from Illinois and Iowa although his own climate and soil are adapted to that product. H also buys some implements, fertilizer, clothing and other manufac tured goods, but being often poor because of the exhaustion of t soil and the repeated failure of his one crop, his demands are not large Moreover, the sale of his one product requires only a few transactio each year. Hence, although the one-crop farmer with his cotton wheat, barley, rye, or tobacco, as the climate and soil may dictat unquestionably plays a great• part in the world's production, he hims in many cases receives little stimulus and profit thereby.