It was evident that collective effort alone was insufficient to obtain a much higher yield than in the past. To make the soil yield more, and thus permit a faster increase in the livestock, it was necessary to employ modern machinery, tractors and combine harvesters.
It was after the wide-scale mechanization of agriculture in the Ukraine, after machine and tractor stations were organized, that the Stalin Collective Farm began to develop by leaps and bounds. By 1937 the grain yield from an area of 3,750 acres averaged 23 bu. to the acre; and nonirrigated cotton, 616 lb. to the acre. The farm's income that year was 2,320,000 roubles.
Even more striking was the success of the farm last year: 1938 demonstrated what collective farming, which employs modern machinery and scientific methods, can attain. Despite the fact that last summer was one of the driest, the yields on the Stalin Collective Farm were even higher than in 1937; they averaged 24 bu. of grain to the acre, while cotton yielded as high as in 1937. The value of the work day unit last year came to six roubles in each and 11 lb. in grain. This does not include the share of fruit, honey, vegetables and fodder that they also got from the farm, nor the income collective farmers derive from their individual gardens, livestock and poultry.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.