FARM MANAGEMENT IN SUMTER COUNTY, GA. 25 
already well established on the white-owner farms. Hogs yielded 1.7 
per cent of the total farm receipts on white-owner farms in 1913, 
and 5.6 per cent in 1918, thus ranking next to cotton. A cooperative 
hog market has been organized at Plains, a village in the western 
part of the county, and at various times during the year the farmers 
arrange sales of sufficient size to attract outside buyers. 
Sales of cattle and poultry and their products increased only 
slightly. Prices of cattle and hay have been relatively low. Receipts 
from man and team labor, ginning and other machine work, and 
woodland products are of very little importance. Rents amounted 
to 4.4 per cent of the total receipts on white-owner farms in 1913 and 
5.1 per cent in 1918. 
DISTRIBUTION OF EXPENSES. 
Farm labor is the largest expense item in the operation of these 
farms. The labor is performed by wage hands, share croppers, and 
members of the farm operator’s family, besides that performed by 
the operator himself. Considerable additional labor also is necessary 
at the time of chopping and picking the cotton crop and at other 
periods of the year with high labor demands. The labor expense 
ranged from 42.8 per cent to 50.9 per cent of the total expenses in 
the different operator classes in 1913, and from 50.6 to 58.9 per cent in 
1918. (See Table 9 and fig. 5.) 
The greatest increase in labor cost was for cropper labor. This was 
not only because the increase in the price of cotton increased cropper 
wages, but also because the percentage of the crop area worked by 
croppers increased. The white operators’ actual expense for wage 
hands and cotton picking and chopping was less in 1918 than in 1913. 
Family labor was of greatest relative importance on the colored-op- 
erator farms. The probability of an increase in the price of cotton 
served to increase the advantage of the share system over the wage 
system from the laborer’s standpoint, since wages naturally lag be- 
hind an advance in prices. This condition prevailed in 1918, con- 
sequently more of the cotton was grown by share-cropper labor 
than by wage labor. 
The expense for repairs and depreciation of machinery, buildings, 
fences, and terraces is of considerable importance. The type of 
machinery used entails a rather heavy replacement expense each year. 
The construction and lack of care of many of the farm buildings is 
such that they depreciate faster than in many other parts of the 
country. These items represented 5.7 per cent of the total farm 
expense on colored-tenant farms in 1913 to 8.8 per cent in 1918 and 
11 per cent of the total farm expense each year on the white-owner 
farms. The actual expense for machinery and buildings was greater 
during the latter year for all groups of farm operators. 
