50 BULLETIN 1034, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
When properly organized, a greater diversity of enterprises gives 
opportunity to use land, labor, mules, and machinery more effectively 
throughout the year, and the income is usually more evenly dis- 
tributed than that from cotton alone, thus making it easier for the 
farmer to operate on a cash basis during the spring and summer 
months when money is needed for paying the farm expenses. Fail- 
ures in individual crops are often due to conditions over which the 
farmer has no control, such as weather, markets, or pests. Ifa farmer 
is raising several important crops it is not likely that all will fail in 
any one year. 
An increase in diversity also aids in the establishment of a crop 
rotation. A well-planned rotation, designed to improve the soil and 
increase yields per acre, should be the aim of all these farmers, since 
rotation not only increases the supply of farm feeds, but, more im- 
portant still, tends to increase the production of the main money 
crop. For, after all, cotton is the staple crop of the region, and the 
general scheme of farming must be shaped with the importance of the 
cotton trop in view. 
FACTORS AFFECTING THE SUCCESSFUL OPERATION OF THESE 
FARMS. 
SIZE OF BUSINESS AND YIELD OF COTTON PER ACRE. 
FARM EARNINGS. 
To study factors that aided in increasing farm earnings, an analysis 
was made of the farms operated by white owners with 100 acres 
or under of tilled land, arranged in three groups with reference to 
the yield of lint cotton. (See Table 28.) Almost without exception, 
both in 1913 and 1918, the farm income, labor income, per cent on 
capital, and value of family living from the farm, increased for the 
various groups as the size of business increased and as the yield of 
cotton per acre increased. (No data were obtained on the value of 
family living from the farm in 1913.) The high earnings of the 
farms with high yields would seem to point out the shortest road 
to greater profits. Doubtless 25 per cent or more of these farmers 
could materially increase their earnings by following economical 
practices making for higher yields per acre. 
Table 29 shows that the relation of size of farm and yield of cotton 
per acre to farm income, labor income, and per cent return on capital 
follows the same trend for the colored-tenant farms as for the white- 
owner farms. 
A comparison of Tables 28 and 29 shows that the percentage returns 
on capital are larger in many instances for the tenant farms than for 
the owner farms. Considering the wide difference in capita] in- . 
volved, no conclusions can logically be drawn from these figures alone 
regarding the relative degree of success of these two classes of farm- 
ers. Indeed, not only the capital involved, but production per farm, 
