IRRIGATED FARMING IN TWIN FALLS COUNTY, IDAHO lo 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 
The Twin Falls south side irrigation project is a very uniform body 
of land. The topography varies from nearly level to gently rolling. 
The average elevation of the project is around 3,700 feet and a little 
more than 200,000 acres is under irrigation. 
The soil is a very uniform silt loam that is well supplied with lime, 
phosphorus, and potash. Like most western arid soils, however, it is 
somewhat deficient in organic matter and nitrogen. 
The average annual precipitation is about 11 inches. The rainfall 
of the summer months is exceptionally scant, and no crops are grown 
without irrigation. On the average there are 129 days between the 
last killing frost in the spring and the first in the fall. 
Water was first turned into the irrigating ditches in the spring of 
1905. Twenty years of farm experience has shown that so far as 
natural resources are concerned the project is well adapted to the 
production of a wide range of field crops, fruits, and vegetables as well 
as to sheep, hog, cattle, poultry, and dairy farming. 
The project is a surplus-producing district and the bulk of the farm 
products must be shipped to distant markets. For this reason trans- 
portation charges play an important part in determining what enter- 
prises can be followed most profitably. 
The economic study of irrigated farming in Twin Falls County 
reported herewith covered a four-year period, 1919-1922. This was 
a very unstable period during which prices of farm products fluctuated 
widely. For this reason much of the data presented here must be used 
with caution except when applied to the period covered by this study. 
The farms studied are located within 10 miles of the city of Twin 
Falls. They varied in size from 17 to 345 acres. The most frequent 
sizes of farm found are 40-acre, 80-acre, and 20-acre, in the order 
named. 
Cash crop farming strongly predominated in this district during the 
period of the study. Of the total number of farms studied, 87 per 
cent were classified as general crop farms, 7 per cent as dairy and 
general crop farms, and 6 per cent as orchard and general crop farms. 
The orchard and general crop farms carried very little productive 
livestock. 
Of the three types, the dairy farms made the highest average net 
return to capital for the four-year period and the orchard farms, the 
second highest. When measured by the percentage return to capital, 
the orchard farms ranked highest in 1919 and 1921 and lowest in 1920 
and 1922; and the dairy farms highest in- 1920. Dairy farming, 
during the four years, was far more stable than either of the other 
types; the orchard farming was the least stable. 
Size of farm had considerable influence on the economical organiza- 
tion and operation of the general crop farms. For example, the 40- 
acre group of farms had 5 per cent more of the total capital tied up 
in buildings and equipment than had the 80-acre group. One and 
one-half times as many crop acres were handled per work horse on the 
80-acre farms as on the 40-acre farms. For es month of man labor 
used, 4.2 acres of crops were taken care of on the 80-acre farms as com- 
vared with 2.8 acres for the 40-acre group. The average crop yield 
was slightly higher on the 40-acre farms. The advantage of the 
larger farms is reflected, at least in part, by the net return per acre 
for the use of real estate. This, for the four-year period, averaged 
approximately $14 for the 80-acre farms and $8 for the 40-acre group. 
