274 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I3TH ANNUAL REPORT 



VARIATIONS IN SIZE OF FARMS 



All the foregoing agricultural statistics are based on average 

 farms, and tell nothing about how many are below and above the 

 average or how far some may depart from the average. News 

 items about wonderful yields of one crop or another abound in 

 local papers, and the census averages seems so small in comparison 

 with some of -these reports as to tend to give the impression that 

 they may be inaccurate or unfair; but it must be borne in mind that 

 it is only exceptional happenings that have much news value, and 

 the doings of the nY.ultitudes of farmers (or any other class of peo- 

 ple) who rank near or below the average are not likely to be men- 

 tioned often. 



The U. S. census gives for every state and county, and in many 

 cases for white and colored farmers separately, the number of 

 farms in several different size groups, from which curves can be 

 constructed showing the range of variation in that particular in 

 any county or group of counties. For i860 and 1870 the group- 

 ing was based on improved acreage, but since then on total acre- 

 age, which in most parts of Florida and other "piney woods." sec- 

 tions is much less significant than improved acreage, for the 

 greater part of the farm area in this State consists of wild land 

 which does not differ perceptibly from neighboring land that has 

 never been appropriated by farniers. 



For this reason, and also because the census does not give sta- 

 tistics of this kind for the two races separately for counties that 

 have less than 100 negro farmers, no size-of-farm curves are pre- 

 sented here,* but some have been drawn for office use, and some 

 of their interesting features may be mentioned briefly. 



At all times and in all countries, as far as known, there are 

 more farms below than above the average size, just as most people 

 are below the average in age, education, wealth etc., as explained 

 at the beginning of the chapter on illiteracy. In 1910 both in 

 central Florida and the whole State just about 23.5% of the white 

 farmers had farms above the average in size, while among the 



*For a series of such curves for southern x'Mabama, perhaps the only ones 

 of the kind ever published, see Geol. Surv. Ala., Special Report No. 11, p. 131, 

 August, 1920. 



