Excerpt from Agricultural Economics Research, Vol. 3: January, 1951 Unfortunately, many decisions at the farm level relative to the adoption of new techniques are being made on a costly trial and error basis. To prevent this lost motion, research should (1) provide cost and performance evaluations of these new produc tion techniques and furnish farmers with guides for their use and (2) develop an appraisal of how these new techniques fit into existing and potential farming systems. The second is probably the more important of the services research should provide. The long-run objective of technological research on Southern farms is to improve the competitive position of the farm commodities produced by pointing the way for the development of a more efficient agriculture - an agriculture in which re turns to production factors approach the returns to similar factors in other farming areas or in other economic endeavors. This objective is not an end in itself. The first test of any farm adjustment is its effect on the net income of the farmer, but the ultimate ends of mechanization must be viewed in terms of their influence on the social and eco nomic structure of the farm economy, of the area and later of the Nation. For example, such ques tions as labor displacement and population shifts, associated with technological progress, must be studied and answered within the framework of the national economy rather than at the local or re gional level. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.