UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 492 



SUZ-'^^U 



OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY 



Contribution from the Office of Farm Management 



W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief 



S^Fr^WL 



Washington, D. C. 



February 10, 1917 



AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF FARMING IN SUMTER 

 COUNTY, GEORGIA. 



By H. M. Dixon, Assistant Agriculturist, and II. W. Hawthorne, Scientific 



Assistant. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 1 



Summary of results 2 



Sources of information 3 



Area studied 3 



Method of procedure 6 



Utilization of the farm area 7 



Page. 



Farm tenure 10 



Size of farm 35 



Diversity of farm receipts 52 



The relation of size of farm and yield per acre 



of cotton to profits .' . 54 



The cost of producing cotton 56 



INTRODUCTION. 



This bulletin embodies a study undertaken with a view to determin- 

 ing the relative importance of the several factors which made for 

 success or failure in the management of representative farms in cen- 

 tral Georgia. An analysis was made of the business of each of 534 

 such farms in Sumter County to bring out the economic signifi- 

 cance of such factors as tenure, size of farm, farm organization, crop 

 yield, and cost of cotton production. 1 



The Sumter County area, where the study was made, is strictly a 

 cotton-growing section, more than one-half of the land in cultivation 

 being devoted to that crop and 89 per cent of all farm receipts com- 

 ing from that source. Roughly speaking, one-third of all farm lands 

 in the county are in cotton, one-third in woods, and the remainder 

 in other crops and pasture. The farms studied vary in size from the 

 50-acre tenant farm to the 5,000-acre plantation. On about one- 

 fourth of the farms the owner reduces risk and responsibility by rent- 



1 The authors wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to the many farmers of Sumter 

 County through whose courteous cooperation this work was made possible. 



Note. — This bulletin is a report on an exhaustive study of farming in a representative 

 county in the cotton belt and is of interest to cotton growers especially. 

 65861°— Bull. 492—17 1 



