CHAPTER 7 

 SIZE OF FARMS 



THROUGHOUT this book, the word farm is used to 

 mean all the land operated by one farmer. If a plantation 

 of 1000 acres is cropped by 20 tenants by any kind of a 

 tenant system, each of the tracts farmed by one tenant is 

 called a farm. But if the entire area is run as one farm 

 by hired labor, then it would be a 1000-acre farm. If 

 there were two separate centers of operation, with stock 

 and equipment at each center, and each in charge of a 

 hired manager, it would be called two farms. In each of 

 these cases, the owner is likely to speak of the area as 

 " my farm," but he would really have 20 farms in the 

 first case, 1 in the second, and 2 in the third. 



159. The American family-farm. The typical Amer- 

 ican farm is a family-farm ; one of such a size that the 

 family does most of the farm work, with some hired help. 

 In 1909, only 46 per cent of the farms had any hired labor. 

 In 1899, there were a little over 1.5 male workers engaged 

 in agriculture for each farm. This includes the operator, 

 members of the family, and hired-men. 



There is no large section of the United States where 

 there is an average of a hired-man for each farm. 



There is, of course, great variation. There are many 

 farm families that have more labor than the farm calls for, 

 so that members of the family hire out to other farmers, 

 or go to the city to work. The majority of farm families 

 do the work of the farm, with the aid of a little hired help 



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