12 
BULLETIN 1338, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Table 4. — The relation of the family living from the farm to the farm receipts, the 
farm income, the family income, and the labor income, in years of prosperity and 
years of depression' 
Family 
living 
from the 
farm 
Farm 
receipts 
Farm 
income 
Family 
income 
Labor 
income 
1918 and 1919 (years of prosperity) . 
1921 and 1922 (years of depression) . 
$554 
484 
$4,792 
3,826 
$2, 491 
1,253 
$2, 653 
1,410 
$1, 106 
In 1918 and 1919, years of general agricultural prosperity, the value 
of the family living from the farm of 2,967 farm families was about 
one-fifth as much as their family income* in 1921 and 1922, years of 
general agricultural depression, the family living from the farm of 
3,597 farm families was about one-third as much as their family 
income. In other words, they had about five times the value of 
their family living from the farm to spend in cash in 1918 and 1919, 
as compared with only three times as much in 1921 and 1922. 
The families in the localities in Washington County, Ohio, Tama 
County, Iowa, and the Palouse country of Idaho and Washington 
had but little more cash to spend than a sum equal to the value of 
the family living from the farm in 1921 and 1922; whereas in the 
more prosperous years, 1918 and 1919, the families in Washington 
County, Ohio, had more than twice as much as the value of their 
family living from the farm to spend. in cash, and the families in 
Tama County, Iowa, and those in the Palouse country of Idaho and 
Washington more than seven times as much. 
In both Hillsboro and Polk Counties, Fla., a winter trucking and a 
citrus fruit section, there was little difference in the relation of the 
value of the family living from the farm to the family income in the 
years of general agricultural depression and prosperity. The years 
1921 and 1922 were fully as good years for these classes of farmers 
as the years 1918 and 1919. 
COST OF LIVING OF FARM FAMILIES 
In the localities referred to on pages 5 and 6, the average value of the 
familv living from the farm for 950 farm families in 14 localities in 
1913 and 1914, was $426, and for 2,074 farm families in 6 localities 
from 1919 to 1923, $623. (See Table 5.) The latter figure varies 
about $100 from the average of the 7,738 farms in Table 2, and the 
figure for 1913 and 1914 appears consistent when price differences are 
considered. The value of the family living from the farm for the 
2,074 farm families was 38 per cent of their total cost of living. 
Similar relationships existed between the part of the food, fuel, and 
house rent furnished bv the farm and the total cost of food, fuel, and 
house rent, for the 2,074 families in 1919 to 1923 and for the 950 
families in the earlier years 1913 and 1914. The value of the family 
living from the farm was 66 per cent of the total cost of food, fuel, 
and house rent for the former group and 63 per cent for the latter. 
(See fig. 1.) For the 6 localities in the former group of families the 
range was from 59 to 73 per cent, and for the 14 localities in the latter 
group, from 49 to 85 per cent. 
