ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF FARMS IN PENNSYLVANIA. 9 



general 'farms. Comparing the family income per farm it will be 

 observed that this is $67 higher on the dairy farms. 



The labor income, which represents the amount of money the 

 farmer received for his year's labor after paying all farm expenses, 

 including the value of labor performed by his family, and 5 per cent 

 interest on the capital invested, averaged $279 on the dairy and $291 

 on the general farms. In addition to this these farmers received 

 house rent and what the farm furnished toward the family living. 



Figure 6 shows labor income, receipts, and expenses for the 349 

 farms arranged according to total acreage. Farms of the same total 

 acreage have been arranged according to crop acreage — those having 

 the lowest crop acreage being placed at the left of the acreage group. 

 The upper half of the chart shows labor income (or loss) and the 

 lower half receipts and expenses. The broken and solid bars taken 

 together represent total receipts for the farm, the solid part repre- 

 senting expenses and the broken part farm income; that is, the dif- 

 ference between total receipts and expenses. For a few farms the 

 bars are solid black; this means that on these farms expenses equaled 

 or exceeded total receipts. The dotted lines connecting the two 

 halves of the chart are put in at 10-acre intervals. 



This chart furnishes some interesting material for the man con- 

 templating the purchase of a farm where conditions are similar to 

 those prevailing here. For instance, if he has in mind a 60-acre 

 farm, he will see that the farms of this size gave labor incomes of 

 from minus $67 to plus $508. Thus the lower half of the chart, 

 showing receipts and expenses, will give him a good indication of 

 what he might reasonably expect to take in as receipts each year and 

 about what proportion of receipts he might expect to pay out for 

 expenses on farms of different sizes operated under such conditions 

 as prevail in the Grove City area. 



In studying this chart it should always be borne in mind that there 

 are efficiently operated farms of all sizes, and that not all the poor 

 farms are small. While it is not possible to tell exactly how much 

 money a man on a 60-acre farm in this area ought to make, this 

 chart shows how much several average, several poor, and several 

 good farmers actually did make in 1916. For this reason a study of 

 this chart ought to be a valuable aid to the better interpretation of 

 the tables of averages given elsewhere in the bulletin, as they show 

 the range of possibilities for farms of any acreage. 



An interesting group of farms, each of 100 acres, appears at about 

 the middle of the chart. Note the variation in labor income from 

 a minus labor income of $302 and increasing to a plus labor income 

 of $1,263. This group of farms of the same size shows that while 

 acreage has an important bearing on labor income, there are a 

 number of other factors that are equally important. 



165155°— 20 2 



