BULLETIN 529, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



shows this relation for a group of 378 farms in southeastern Penn- 

 sylvania. The results indicate that under the conditions prevailing 

 in this locality, and with the methods practiced by local farmers, 

 the point of diminishing returns is reached when the yield on a given 

 farm reaches about 40 per cent above the general average of the com- 

 munity. Yields higher than this appear to be obtained at an ex- 

 pense greater than the increase in income due to the increased yields. 

 The figures would naturally differ for different regions. 



Table I. — Relation of crop yield to labor income. 



Average yields expressed in percentage of the com- 

 munity average 



Average labor income expressed in percentage of the 

 community average 



Groups of farms based on yield per acre. 



84 and 

 less. 



140 and 

 over. 



HOW FARM RECORDS ARE OBTAINED. 



Knowledge of the details of farm practice and of the results arising 

 from this practice may be obtained in two ways. First, careful 

 records may be kept of the details of the farm work and the business 

 transactions of the farmer. Second, such details may be obtained 

 by interviewing farmers who give them as accurately as may be 

 from memory, or from such desultory records as may have been made 

 of the farm operations. The first of these methods involves years of 

 labor and enormous expense; the second gives an enormous amount 

 of data in a short while and at a nominal expense. The question is 

 as to the relative accuracy of these two methods. 



When farm management investigations first began it was supposed 

 that the only way to get at the facts of farm practice with a degree 

 of accuracy sufficient for investigational purposes was by means of 

 carefully made records. Accordingly, cost- accounting records were 

 begun on a large number of farms. It was soon perceived, however, 

 that the cost of such records and the time required for their accumu- 

 lation were serious obstacles. Furthermore, practice differs so 

 widely in different regions, on different farms in the same locality, 

 and even on the same farm from year to year, that it would be an 

 interminable task to collect sufficient data in this manner to solve 

 the numerous problems which the study of farm practice had re- 

 vealed. Because of the amount of time involved the results would 

 frequently be out of date before the work could be finished. Finally 

 it was decided to give the second method a trial. At first many 

 students of farm management had misgivings as to the validity of 

 data obtained from farmers who keep few or no records. Accord- 

 ingly, in order to test this point a number of investigations were un- 



