FARM MANAdRMENT PRACTICE OF ClI KS Ti:i: COUNTY, PA. 43 

 Table XTX. — Percentage of income (nun poultry r/.s related In labor income. 





None. 



1 to 9. 



20 to 39. 



40+. 









g 

 38 



319 



104 



43 



97 



8 





40 







The numbers in the remaining classes are quite sufficient to give 

 averages having a definite meaning. Farmers deriving from 1 to 19 

 per cent of their income from poultry make profits above the aver- 

 age, while those deriving more than 20 per cent of their income 

 from this source make profits below the average. Furthermore, the 

 largest number of farmers are in the class making the greatest profits. 

 In other words, the farmers of this region have been driven by 

 economic forces, which are not always definitely recognized, to give 

 the poultry enterprise the position on their farms which conduces to 

 the greatest profit. The fact that the forces acting in this case are 

 not universally recognized and understood is proven by the fact 

 that quite a number of farmers have not responded to them. 



We shall perhaps find no better illustration than this of the fact 

 that it would not always pay the farmer to do cost accounting, and 

 as a result of the information thus obtained increase the magnitude 

 of his most profitable enterprises and eliminate those which the 

 bookkeeping records indicate to be unprofitable. The Office of Farm 

 Management has kept books on farm poultry under conditions 

 similar to those prevailing on the average farm of this region, 

 and when the time and material devoted to them are charged at 

 current rates the results showed a loss for the year. Doubtless the 

 same would be true on most of these farms. Yet the data given 

 show that they are profitable when kept within proper limits. It is, 

 of course, possible to make a real poultry farm profitable, especially 

 near a good market, and such farms are to be found. But it is diffi- 

 cult to do so. The poultryman finds himself in competition with 

 farm flocks that are kept at nominal expense, both the time and 

 materials consumed in their management being otherwise largely 

 unutilized. The business may thus be distinctly profitable to the 

 farmer with a small flock, while the poultryman under the same con- 

 ditions would find it much more difficult to make a profit. One or 

 two of the real poultry farmers found in this survey made fair 

 profits, but they were unusual men. 



Dairying. — It has been made clear in the foregoing discussion that 

 this is preeminently a dairy region. The receipts from dairy cattle 

 and their products together constitute 44 per cent of the entire income 

 of these 378 farms. It will later be seen that on the tenant farms 

 dairying is even more important than it is on those operated by 

 their owners. For the past third of a century the production of 



