No. 4.] FARM MANAGEMENT. 59 



farmers. Farm management is merely a scientific method of 

 classifying and interpreting the collective experience of the 

 farming people as to what constitutes efficiency in farming. 



Farm management deals with the principles which underlie 

 profitable farming. These principles are not unlike those which 

 underlie the profitable conduct of any business. The difference 

 is merely in the application. The one fundamental principle 

 underlying all successful business undertaking is that the cost 

 must be less than the selling price. In the operation of this 

 principle, agriculture is no exception. Farming, however, is 

 such a complex business, and the different enterprises making 

 up the farm unit are so intricately related, that it is often 

 well-nigh impossible to determine the true cost or the true 

 selling price of a farm product. However, the relation of any 

 factor in farming to the profit of the farm as a whole, by the 

 study of a large group of farms, can be fairly accurately de- 

 termined. This relation of the individual enterprise to the 

 profits of the whole is perhaps the best guide to successful 

 farming and to an understanding of the principles upon which 

 good farm organization is based. 



One of the first and most important factors having to do 

 with profitable farming, as in all other lines of business, is the 

 size of the enterprise. There are several measures of size of a 

 farming enterprise. Perhaps in general farming of the same 

 type the area of the farm furnishes the most significant measure 

 of size. Of course, size in acres cannot be used in comparing 

 a truck farm or a farm of any intensive type with a general 

 farm. Despite the much talked of idea of "a little farm well 

 tilled," actual records from thousands of farms covering pretty 

 well the whole United States go to show that little farms do 

 not often make big profits, and that as a rule the profits from 

 farming vary directly with the size of the business. It might, 

 however, be pointed out in this connection that the oppor- 

 tunities for loss vary also in the same way. 



In the study of the agriculture of Chester County, Penn- 

 sylvania, of 115 farms of the group of 60 acres and under, 

 averaging 40 acres, only 8 per cent made labor incomes of $1,000 

 or more, and the average for the group was $404. Of the 

 group ranging in size from 161 to 393 acres, averaging 203 



