farm, based upon alfalfa, is actually about 30 acres. This is perhaps 

 another way of saying that these families are satisfied with a gross 

 income of $2000 per year. 



INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN 



The one-family farm just mentioned is a familiar instance of 

 the influence of family co-operation in farming. Various members 

 of the family help on these farms. In this way the labor income 

 is apparently increased and the expense of conducting the farm is 

 decreased. This, however, is merely because members of the family 

 are not paid for this labor at current rates. Nevertheless one of the 

 important reasons for engaging in certain types of farming is that 

 it gives rational and remunerative employment to the children of the 

 family. Farming remains the one great industry where children are 

 a material asset. A man with a family of children may wisely engage 

 in dairying, fruit raising, or vegetable growing, not only because he 

 can use the labor of his children to advantage, but because the train- 

 ing in contributing to the family income which they receive before 

 the age of twenty-one is one of the most valuable assets these children 

 can acquire. If the ideal of a successful home is not a part of the pro- 

 gramme it may be well to question whether some other activity may 

 not better engage attention. 



THE INFLUENCE OF PEICE 



The gross return per acre depends of course, upon two factors 

 yield and price. The size of the farm required for a given gross 

 return will depend, therefore, not only upon the fertility of the soil 

 but also upon the location. The latter materially affects the price, 

 especially in a state of great size with many communities remote from 

 the larger centers of population. Nowhere, probably, is community 

 effort more important in securing satisfactory prices than with the 

 fruit raiser in California. No matter how satisfactory the yield and 

 quality of the fruit may be, if the grower is not surrounded by others 

 raising a like commodity, usually it will be found difficult to market 

 the crop at a satisfactory price. In the figures which are given in 

 the table it is not intended to state either the lowest price or the 

 highest price at which a given commodity sells in California, but 

 rather to state what men in the industry would look upon as a low or 

 high price. The average price, also, is not necessarily the average of 

 any number of years or of any locality, but rather a statement of 

 what would be looked upon as a satisfactory price by those who are 

 engaged extensively in growing the particular crop in the leading 

 localities where the crop is produced. 



