Cropland Use and Soil Fertility Practice in War and Peace

Background of Report: Statistics regarding prewar and wartime land use were developed by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Estimates of wartime use of practices and suggestions for postwar land use and practices that would be profitable to farmers under prosperity conditions were developed from the State-Federal cooperative study of desirable postwar adjustments, except as otherwise indicated. Many of these estimates and suggestions are also included in the printed report, "Peacetime Adjustments in Farming — Possibilities under Prosperity Conditions,” December 1945, which outlines the suggested level and pattern of crop and livestock production in comparison with the prewar and wartime situations. This report does not include data, quantitative estimates, suggestions, or discussion of all the important factors that are associated with soil fertility or other aspects of physical productivity. It is limited primarily to suggestions for postwar land use and practices considered by State Production Adjustment Committees, compared with similar items for the prewar and wartime periods. The practices considered here were primarily chosen from those that had been considered by the State Committees. The Committees believed that a material increase in the extent of adoption of these practices would be profitable for farmers generally within approximately a 5-year period, under the economic conditions outlined below. Certain practices that merit consideration within this interpretation, but for which the making of quantitative estimates is difficult, were no doubt omitted.