48 



X. II. Agr. Experiment Station 



[Bulletin 260 



Size of the farm business is not always a matter of acres. The num- 

 ber of cows kept or the acres planted to intensive crops like potatoes 

 may be more important. The amount of capital invested and the num- 

 ber of man work units are also used as measures. As long as the farms 

 are uniform, any one of these yardsticks will measure satisfactorily the 

 size of the business. Usually, conditions vary so much from farm to 

 farm that some indices are much more trustworthy than others. For 

 example, if a man owns 200 acres of land, but most of the pasture has 

 groAvn up to worthless bushes and the fields produce scarcely anything 

 except run-out haj^, total acres would be a poor measure of the size of 

 his farm business. 



u 



Total Capital 



In Table 35, the total capital invested in the farm business was used 

 as a measure of size. There were 54 farms having an average invest- 

 m.ent of $3,991. Their average return in labor income was $204, or less 

 than one-fourth as much as that of the 71 farms having an average to- 

 tal capital of $22,785. There is an unmistakable tendency for incomes 

 to increase with the amount of capital. The larger farms got better 

 milk production per cow and better prices for milk. They got more 

 work done with less man labor as evidenced by the increasing man 

 work units per man. 



Table 35 — Relation of total capital to lahor income. 



The total number of acres in the farm has considerable to do with 

 income (Table 3()). Tlie 67 farms having less than 126 acres made la- 

 bor incomes of $163, wdiile those with 355 or more acres made incomes 

 of $695, or nearly twice the average of all. 



Acres in Crops 



Acres in crops is a doubtful measure of size. Nearly half of the farms 

 sold no crops at all, but simply grew feed for cows. ITnder these condi- 

 tions, crop acres contribute their influence rather indirectly to size of 

 business and its effect on labor income is often masked by differences 



