RURAL ECONOMICS 



I515 



culture, which now changes only when economic or other conditions change. 

 The local agriculture therefore lends itself admirably to a study of the fun- 

 damental principles of farm organisation. 



This report, relating to the period March i, 1911 to March i, 1912, 

 includes as has been stated above, the analytical study of 643 farms. For 

 each of these a valuation has been made of all farm property ; the propor- 

 tion of capital invested in land, buildings, live stock, implements and machi- 

 nery, supplies and cash for current expenses ; the source of income and the 

 amount from each ; the value and amount of expenditures ; and numerous 

 other items bearing on profit in farming. 



Besides this general study of each farm a full account is given of the 

 geography, topography, geology and drainage S5^stems of the district. Fur- 

 ther the agricultural history of the area is survej-ed, principally since 1840, 

 when the decennial census of live stock was begun as part of the Government 

 scheme of agricultural statistics. Table I gives some idea of the profound 

 changes that occurred in eastern agriculture during the decade 1840 - 50. 

 About this time there was an enormous extension of agriculture in Ohio 

 and the Mississippi Vallej's. I<ater, about 1870, the city of Philadelphia 

 began to exert its influence on the local farming, and, with the increasing 

 town populations of the neighbourhood, the dairy side of the industry be- 

 came dominant. 



Table I. — Census data showing changes in the agriculture of Chester County. 



Live stock and crops 



1840 



1850 



i860 



1870 



1880 



i8go 



I goo 



Dairy cows 



other cattle 



Swine 



Sheep 



Milk sold (thousands of gallons) 



Butter produced (thousands of 

 pounds) 



Wheat (thousands of bushels) . 



Barley thousands of bushels) . 



Oats (thousands of bushels) . . 



Rye (thousands of bushels) . . 



Corn (thousands of bushels) . . 



Hay and forage (thousands of 

 tons) 



16000 

 45000 

 64500 

 56700 



438 



45 



I 080 



86 



826 



78 



19604 

 35 500 

 36600 

 13400 



2092 



547 



2 



I 1461 



1339 



961 



25900 

 29900 

 31 500 

 II 700 



2730 

 801 



5! 



1 227; 



32 



I 5901 



94 



32 700 

 21 100 

 28 200 

 13 100 

 1598 



754 



1.6 



1034 



12! 



42 400 

 18 400 

 34000 

 15 100 

 5 759 



4247 

 775 

 0.9 



I 137 



20 



1965 



1261 



49300 

 12000 

 35600 

 II 200 

 24000 



1628 

 882 



0.2 

 8681 



19 

 1959! 



162 i 



2687' 



In order to make the comparisons on which the bulletin is based of 

 real value, i'c was necessary to limit the work to the 378 farms on which 

 the farmer himself took a man's part in the work of the farm. This in\-olv- 

 ed the rejection of : 16 farms owned and managed by women who did none 

 of the farm work ; 24 farms run b}' paid managers ; 27 farms devoted wholly 



