FARM-MANAGEMENT STUDY IN .ANDERSON CO., S. C. 21 



The most noticeable difference is in the yield of crops. Cotton 

 made 268 pounds of net lint per acre on farms having the more 

 favorable sizes and 235 pounds on those of the C groups, while corn 

 made 19 and 16.4 bushels, respectively. Not only do the farms with 

 the more favorable sizes handle the labor more efficiently, but since 

 the acreage is such that labor is utilized to good advantage, the crops 

 were properly tended and good yields resulted. It is also noticeable 

 on these farms that where a man is efficient in one thing he is also 

 likely to be efficient in others. When a farmer has the foresight and 

 ability to adjust the size of his farm so that the labor and equipment 

 have a high degree of efficiency, he will also usually have the ability 

 to secure yields that are above the average. 



Handling the farm in such a way that the unit of organization can 

 be used at its optimum capacity is therefore one of the important 

 factors hi determining the success of a farm. The farmer who has 

 an acreage too small for one mule should rent, clear up, or buy more 

 land. Or, if he has too much for one and not enough for two, say 

 30 acres, for example, he should either rent out some land, retaining 

 enough to make an efficient size for a one-mule farm, or in some way 

 add to his acreage sufficient to make a good two-mule farm. A man 

 with 55 acres of crop land has too much for two mules and not enough 

 for three, but if he would rent out 10 acres and make a two-mule 

 farm, or rent, buy, or clear up 10 acres more and run a three-mule 

 farm, his profits would be greater. Another way of handling such 

 situations as this is to plant certain more or less intensive crops. 

 If the acreage per mule is too small, one may plant crops requir- 

 ing more labor; or if the acreage is too large, a larger acreage of 

 extensive crops like corn may be planted. But where cotton is the 

 predominating crop, neither of these methods is so satisfactory or so 

 profitable as adjusting the size of the farm to give the optimum 

 acreage per mule. 



The relation of size of farm to efficiency in the Belton area can also 

 be studied by comparing the farms having different numbers of work 

 animals per farm, for here size is commonly designated thus. In 

 Table XVI and figure 6 it can be seen that farms that had from 41 to 45 

 acres, or a good size for two mules, were for their size more profitable 

 than the 1-mule and 3-mule farms. In comparing farms of different 

 sizes one difficulty is that the small farms frequently have unfavor- 

 able acreages for the efficient use of work animals. In fact 

 this is one of the weak points in the organization of small farms. 

 For that reason, in order to make a better comparison, farms having 

 only 17 or more acres per work animal are used in Table XVII. 

 In this grouping, also, farms using two head of work stock were most 

 profitable. The 2-mule farms had the highest per cent return on the 

 investment and made the most cotton per acre, though the yields of 



