Sec. 4. #Farming viewed as a capitalistic enterprise#.  Thus the farm comes to be looked upon more and more, not just as a home, but much as if it were a commercial enterprise or a factory, by which products are made for sale.  This change, to be sure, is far from complete, as the figures for the average farmer’s income show that a large share of the family living still comes from the farm.  It has gone on much further in some districts than in others, as is indicated in the types of farming discussed below.  But just to the extent that the farmer grows crops to sell, his outlook on his work undergoes a change.  He is less exclusively a farmer, concerned with the technical processes of farming; he must be more largely a business man.  Like a manufacturing enterpriser, he buys the factors of production, combines them into new products, and sells them again.  He becomes interested in market conditions and prices.  He grows more commercially-minded.  He views the farm no longer as a fixed area, but one that may be enlarged by purchase or by rental, and that may be reduced by selling or letting the less needed parts.  One-fifth of farm owners now rent additional land.  In commercial farming the land is not contrasted with capital as something apart, consisting of the value of the equipment and stock; but the whole complex of land and other goods is thought of as a capital-investment.  The greater ease of transferring landed-property in America and the greater mobility of our population have always made it more natural here than in Europe to look upon land as a capital investment.  This view is now becoming more general as a result of the commercializing of farming enterprise.

This change has been favored by other influences.  Particularly has the use of machinery and of other equipment, calling for a larger investment per man and per acre, been making agriculture, in its form of enterprise, more and more like manufacturing and commercial undertakings.

Sec. 5. #Diversified versus specialized farming#.  To be self-sufficing a farming family must carry on general farming, that is, must produce a diversity of products.  As farming becomes more commercialized it necessarily becomes somewhat more specialized, and produces a smaller variety of products.  In some parts of the country and on particular farms this specialization is extreme:  in California, citrus fruits, or prunes, or beans, may be the only crop raised; wheat in Kansas and the Dakotas, and dairy products in thousands of farms surrounding the great cities, are the main, tho not the exclusive products.  Many farmers in these districts have no gardens or orchards, keep no cow, and buy much or all of the grain for their horses, as well as milk, butter, vegetables and fruits for their own use.  Poultry and eggs are shipped in trainloads two thousand miles from the Middle West to California to be consumed by orange growers.  Many farmers in the East no longer keep sheep, pigs, or beef cattle, and they buy out of the butcher’s wagon all the meat except fowls used by their families.  This partly explains the decrease of live stock in the whole country in recent years and the increase in the price of meat.