22 



BULLETIN 853, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Table XII shows the effect upon labor income of improving the 

 quality of the stock and increasing the crop yields. Yields per 

 acre and returns per productive animal unit were found to bear the 

 same relation to labor income on dairy farms as on general farms; 

 hence for the sake of brevity the figures for the two groups have 

 been tabulated together. 



Table XII. — Effect of yields per acre and returns per productive animal unit on labor 

 incomes, by size of farm, 349 farms, Grove City, Fa., area. 



LABOR INCOME. 





Group. 



Live-stock index. 1 





100 acres or under. 



Over 100 acres. 





100 or 



less. 



Over 

 100. 



100 or 

 less. 



Over 

 100. 



Crop index: 1 



$41 



224 



S285 

 452 



S134 

 340 



$398 



Over 100 



576 







1 For definition of these terms see page 21. 



In order to eliminate the effect of size of business as much as pos- 

 sible, the farms were arranged into two groups. As would be expected, 

 the groups having crop yields and live-stock returns above the aver- 

 age made the most money. This table shows, moreover, that in an 

 area like this, where so great a percentage of the returns is from live 

 stock, it is better to make an effort to improve the quality of the 

 live stock than to try to grow better crops and feed them to poor live 

 stock. Those farmers operating either large or small farms whose 

 crop yields were below the average of those produced in the region, 

 but with live-stock receipts above the average, made higher labor 

 incomes than those having live-stock receipts below the average 

 and crop yields above the average. 



LIVE STOCK. 



We have seen in Table XII that the farms with crop yields and 

 live-stock returns above the average made more than average labor 

 incomes, and have observed the effect of increasing the receipts per 

 unit of live stock. Table IV showed that over 14 per cent of the 

 receipts on general farms and 38 per cent of the receipts on the 

 dairy farms were from dairy products. It would seem, then, that 

 one of the most direct and effective ways of increasing the income of 

 the farmers of this region is to follow those practices that tend to 

 increase production per cow. 



Accurate data were obtained on 265 farms, averaging 6 cows per 

 farm, where the cows were kept for dairy purposes, which showed 

 that the average sales of butter fat per cow was 116.6 pounds. This 



