Maladjusfments in Land Use 



15 



Income Conditions. — Tlie tnt;il \;iliio of production 

 of tho fiirnis to be retired was $L'():^,(; 10,000 in 1029. 

 This includes ])roducts consumed \iy the fjiiiiily ;is 

 well as those sold or traded. A \ery large proportion 

 of this — 4.5 percent — was consumed on the farm and 5") 

 percent was commercial j)ro(]uction. Tiiese pei'cont- 

 ages, wlien compared witii i:> i)ercent fin' prothicts 

 consumed on tlie farm and S7 p(>rcent for products sold 

 from the farm for all farms in tiie rnif(>d States, show 

 that these farms in the p<ior fai-miim' areas are nnicli 

 less commercial than are the other fainis of the countrv 

 as a whole (see fig. '^). There is consid(Mat)le variation 

 in tiie degree of commercialization on (licse farms 

 locateil on ])oor land. Those located in the (ii'cat 

 I^Jains, the Columhia Basin, the Interior Basin, and 

 I lie Cotton Belt are more highly conunerciali/.ed than 

 'hose in other regions. 



Low income is the basic cause for many of (he (hlli- 

 culties prevalent in submarginal land areas. Small 

 incomes are found, however, in good as well as in ])oor 

 sections. The so-caJled suf>marginal land areas are, 

 to state the matter briefly, merely those where tfiere 

 appears to he no possibility of increasing the returns 

 on low-income farms. The c:ross income in some 



instances may a[)p(>ar (o he f.airly large, hut that [)art 

 available for- family living ma.v 1)C wholly inadecjuate 

 because of very high costs; in other instances, where 

 theie is little cash outlay, a small gross income may 

 l)rovide a much bettei- ih^ income. It is the net income 

 axailahle for the family living, therefore, which really 

 determines the |)rofitableness or unprofitableness of 

 farming, and hence is one of th(^ imi)ortant criteria 

 used to determitie whether or not land should remain 

 in agriculture. Outside of areas of specialized ])ro- 

 duction, such as the Cotton Belt or the Wheat Belt, 

 most of the farms on submarginal land are getu>ral 

 farms, and even in (he poorer parts of the s|)('ci;dized 

 farming regions general I'ai'ms an^ ipiitc conunon. On 

 this type of farm whei'e, during more prosperous times, 

 the gross production may average .$,500 (including the 

 ])ro(lucts consumed by the farm family), the actual cash 

 income available for family living will be less than 

 .$2.50. On geiKMal f.irms in the Cotton Belt the gross 

 production averages $:?00 or less and the net cash 

 income is only a little over .$100. 



A picture of the inadequacy of the living available 

 from submarginal land is given in table I. This siiows 

 how an income of .$2:^.5 in cash and .$2(i.5 of honic-grown 



FlcrRE .f. ("iiiniiier<i:il agriculture ischamctcrisiiciif iiraciirally all parts of the Cnitoii State.';, cvcept the Siiutliern A|ipalachians. In sever..»l coimtios of e.islern Kentucky only 

 about one-fourth of the products of the farms, iiieasureil by \'aUie. were sold in 1929, according to the census. On the other hand, ui most of the States westward and soutli- 

 we.stward from Iowa, also in northern and central lllitiois, parts of Indiana. Ohio, Xew Vork, and •\rassachu.sel ts, and in nearly all Now Jersey, over "JOi>ercent of the products 

 of the farms were .sold. These figures are heavily weighted by the larger farms, which sell nearly all their iiroducts. However, in all the United States in 1929 there were only 

 500,000 ■■self-siiiricins" farms, that Ls, farms on which more than half the products were used by the farm family. This is about 8 percent o( all farms, o-xcluding the 340,000 

 part-time farms, many of which are also self-sufficing. 



