tim briefly mentioned the best moneymaker per work & money spent.
There's a huge flaw in the game where livestock while inside a barn don't require extra water-hay. There's a second huge flaw that has livestock from the different barns all act like they're in a single barn. There's a third huge flaw that has livestock unable to leave the barn if there's a drainage ditch on all sides. There's a fifth huge flaw that has the barn never run out of feed and water without costing extra money as long as it has water access.
Start off with 4 cows... end up with 1015 or 1025 (can't remember exact cutoff number where no new livestock gets born) without any feed costs... very small costs for building barns (they never deteriorate and need replacing), no machinery repair costs or harvesting costs. Sell for 800 per cow selling 100+ head of cows on a constant basis when they hit B grade (you run out of space for new cows if you don't), no cost for fertalizer/insecticides/etc., very small space used up in process.
Here's an ascii diagram to give folks an idea how the scheme works (notice the two pumps way off to the side next to each other.. that's to insude water during flood times too... during a drought add more ditches and pumps as needed it's a very minor waste of money). L = lake, B = barn, P = pump, - = left-right irrigation ditch, | = up-down irrigation ditch
-------------P----------P----PL
|B|B|B|B|B|
------P-------
|B|B|B|B|B|
-------------P
You may need more or less pumps than that. The key is to make sure there's a constant supply of water to every barn. By doing that grid pattern you surround it with ditches to keep the cattle in and at same time give it the constant water supply so they don't 'starve'. This also minimizes the space needed. It's been about a decade since I last played this game and my 3.5 disk no longer works so I can't supply a picture of the scheme in action but basically it takes up about 3-4 fields worth of space but gives you every week or two another 10k or so. You can use this then buy up the entire rest of the map (minus the city parts) and just leave it as open space for the deer and buffalo to roam in.
Only downside to this scheme is that you make so much money that you pay so much taxes that the city grows unbelievably fast so its hard to buy up the map. BTW Cows work best for this method. Pigs and sheep have too short of a lifetime, horses have too few babies born in a time period.
Think that's too much of a cheat or too much work constantly selling off cattle? Try the fallow apples method. Yes, only in SimFarm can the laziest SOB become a member of the slovenly rich. Put in an apple field. Don't spray anything onto it, watch harvest time. What rate is it? If value is 0 bulldoze the field and plant a new crop of apples. If it's higher than 0 you will never ever have to do anything with that field except harvest them and always make more money than harvesting cost (even if you rent the equipment as well as pay the workers). Sure you won't make the big bucks as if you put a ton of time, effort, and money into the fields... but you also don't have to worry about doing any work once you get a 'decent' orchard since the bugs will never damage the crop, etc. Basically think of it as the aggriculturists version of a roach tentement where the owner takes money in but doesn't do any work and the poor tenants suffer but never move away.
For some reason the fallow field method works best with apples not oranges or other crops. It does work though with all of the 'permanent' tree crops.
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