UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 659 



H^» OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY *\J , / 



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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY 



Contribution from the Office of Farm Management 



W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief 



Washington, D. C. 



June 17, 1918 



A FARM MANAGEMENT STUDY OF COTTON 

 FARMS OF ELLIS COUNTY, TEX. 



By Rex E. Willard, Agriculturist. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Definitions and explanation of terms 2 



Area surveyed -. . 4 



Tenure 14 



Type of farm. ; 23 



Size of business 25 



Quality of farming 31 



Farm organization 39 



Cost of production 46 



This bulletin is based on data obtained in a survey of the business 

 of 120 farms in Ellis County, Tex., in 1914. 1 In this survey the fol- 

 lowing factors were taken into consideration: Value of farm prop- 

 erty ; proportion of capital invested in land, buildings, implements, 

 and machinery; feed inventories and cash for operating expenses; 

 labor requirements for all crops, and amount of time available for 

 farm work; receipts from various sources; expenses of all kinds, and 

 miscellaneous minor factors influencing profits. 



It must be understood that the records and observations concern- 

 ing cotton farming in this publication apply to normal conditions 

 before the European war. Due allowance must therefore be made 

 concerning exceptional prices, conditions, and demands relating to 

 agriculture at this time. The business hazard of a system of farm- 

 ing which depends almost wholly upon a single crop for income has 

 been exhibited in seasons of large cotton crops as in 1911 and notably 

 in 1911, with accompanying decline in price to the cost of produc- 

 tion or below it, and comparatively low yields of other necessary 



1 Acknowledgment is due Messrs. C. E. Hoke, C. L. Goodrich, A. G. Smith, A. D. McNair, 

 M. A. Crosby, F. D. Stevens, and E. A. Boeder, of the Office of Farm Management, and Mr. 

 Walton Peteet, of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, who assisted in collect- 

 ing the data presented in this bulletin Mr. H. H. Bennett, of the U. S. Bureau of Soils, 

 assisted materially in the location of the soils (fig. 2) to which the conclusions of this 

 survey are applicable. 



