FARM-MANAGEMENT STUDY IN ANDERSON CO., S. C. 21 
The most noticeable difference is in the yield of crops. Cotton 
made 268 pounds of net lint per acre on farms having the more 
favorable sizes and 235 pounds on those of the C groups, while corn 
made 19 and 16.4 bushels, respectively. Not only do the farms with 
the more favorable sizes handle the labor more efficiently, but since 
the acreage is such that labor is utilized to good advantage, the crops 
were properly tended and good yields resulted. It is also noticeable 
on these farms that where a man is efficient in one thing he is also 
likely to be efficient in others. When a farmer has the foresight and 
ability to adjust the size of his farm so that the labor and equipment 
have a high degree of efficiency, he will also usually have the ability 
to secure yields that are above the average. 
Handling the farm in such a way that the unit of organization can 
be used at its optimum capacity is therefore one of the important 
factors in determining the success of a farm. The farmer who has 
an acreage too small for one mule should rent, clear up, or buy more 
land. Or, if he has too much for one and not enough for two, say 
30 acres, for example, he should either rent out some land, retaining 
enough to make an efficient size for a one-mule farm, or in some way 
add to his acreage sufficient to make a good two-mule farm. A man 
with 55 acres of crop land has too much for two mules and not enough 
for three, but if he would rent out 10 acres and make a two-mule 
farm, or rent, buy, or clear up 10 acres more and run a three-mule 
farm, his profits would be greater. Another way of handling such 
situations as this is to plant certain more or less intensive crops. 
If the acreage per mule is too small, one may plant crops requir- 
ing more labor; or if the acreage is too large, a larger acreage of 
extensive crops like corn may be planted. But where cotton is the 
predominating crop, neither of these methods is so satisfactory or so 
profitable as adjusting the size of the farm to give the optimum 
acreage per mule. 
The relation of size of farm to efficiency in the Belton area can also 
be studied by comparing the farms having different numbers of work 
animals per farm, for here size is commonly designated thus. In 
Table XVI and figure 6 it can be seen that farms that had from 41 to 45 
acres, or a good size for two mules, were for their size more profitable 
than the 1-mule and 3-mule farms. In comparing farms of different 
sizes one difficulty is that the small farms frequently have unfavor- 
able acreages for the efficient use of work animals. In fact 
this is one of the weak points in the organization of small farms. 
For that reason, in order to make a better comparison, farms having 
only 17 or more acres per work animal are used in Table XVII. 
In this grouping, also, farms using two head of work stock were most 
profitable. The 2-mule farms had the highest per cent return on the 
investment and made the most cotton per acre, though the yields of 
