54 BULLETIN 341, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the size of the farm business. In these cases it would be better 

 to use the crop area plus the crop equivalent of the pasture area. By 

 referring to Table II it will be seen that when the farms in this 

 survey are averaged in groups the total woodland and waste land 

 varies within narrow limits. Hence in this Chester County area the 

 size of the farm itself is very closely proportional to the magnitude 

 of the farm business. For this reason it has been used in this 

 bulletin in the tabulations which involve the relation of the magni- 

 tude of the farm business to other factors. This method, as above 

 stated, would not be applicable to a region in which a large and 

 variable proportion of the land is practically unused in the business. 



THE MINIMUM EFFICIENT UNIT. 



The " minimum efficient unit " in agriculture is a farm of sufficient 

 size and so organized as to give full employment at productive labor 

 to the farm family. The farm may be any amount larger than 

 this, provided the operator has sufficient managerial ability to make 

 the larger business efficient, but there are very distinct disadvantages 

 if the farm business is smaller than the most efficient unit as above 

 described. When such is the case the farm family does not have 

 the opportunity to exert its full earning power. 



The fact that the minimum efficient unit in farming is relatively 

 very small as compared with most other industries is the most at- 

 tractive feature of farming as a business. Because of the small size 

 of this unit economic independence is fairly easy of accomplishment, 

 and many prefer independence with a moderate competence to de- 

 pendence with a very small chance of pronounced success. 



The ideal size of farm is somewhat larger than the minimum 

 efficient unit. It is such as to permit a high standard of living and 

 the education of the farm children, but the ordinary family farm 

 with good management will often permit this. 



Farms in the North Atlantic States are mostly small in area. The 

 reason for this is mainly historical and has already been set forth in 

 the introduction to this bulletin. Attention has also been called to 

 the fact that in increasing the farm business on these small farms in 

 order to meet the competition with larger farms in the West, the line 

 of least resistance was represented by the development of more in- 

 tensive farming rather than extension of acreage, though examples 

 of both methods of enlarging the business are frequently found. It 

 requires somewhat greater ability on the part of the farmer to con- 

 duct an intensive business on a small area than it does a more ex- 

 tensive business of similar magnitude on a larger area. Hence, a 

 large proportion of eastern farmers with small areas of land at their 

 disposal have not been as successful as might be wished in developing 



