32 
BULLETIN 648, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Table XIII. — Relation of diversity to cost of work-stock labor and to farm 
profits {Brooks County, Ga.). 
Diversity index. 
Number 
of farms. 
Average 
diversity 
index. 
Acres of 
crop land 
per farm. 
Cost of 
mule 
labor 
per day. 
Crop 
index. 
Index 
of 
earnings. 
Less than 2 
27 
54 
25 
1.5 
3.0 
4.7 
89 
147 
194 
SI. 20 
1.04 
.98 
0.98 
1.02 
1.00 
85 
2 to 3.9 
100 
116 
106 
3.0 
145 
1.07 1 1-00 
106 
It is easily possible for diversification to be carried to an un- 
profitable extreme. 1 Beyond a not well-defined limit, further 
diversification may be at the expense of skill and attention to the 
details of the major sources of income. But it does not appear that 
any of these groups of farmers have gone beyond that limit. 
Prominent among the advantages to be gained from diversification, 
increased crop yields, resulting from more frequent rotation, and 
better employment of labor throughout the year, are usually stressed. 
However, on these farms there appears to be but little relation be- 
tween diversity and crop yields, the more diversified farms showing 
only a slightly higher crop index; but the diversified farms do 
show a distinctly better utilization of the work-stock labor, and it 
has been shown elsewhere that this factor is an important one. 
With the increase in diversity, the average number of days of pro- 
ductive work-stock labor per mule increased from 98 to 115 and 127, 
with resulting decreasing costs per day from $1.20 to $1.04 and 
$0.98. 
It thus appears that the more highly diversified farms have a 
slight advantage in yields of crops, and a considerable advantage 
in providing profitable employment for the work stock, and in re- 
turning larger profits per farm. 
PRODUCTION OF HOME SUPPLIES. 
Closely associated with the subject of diversification is the pro- 
duction on the farm of supplies consumed in the home. For many 
years the farmers of Brooks County have practiced, and prided 
themselves upon, the policy of producing at home a large part of 
the family living. In but few places will a class of farmers be found 
that produce for home use a larger amount of food products per 
family or per person than do the white farmers in this area. 
1 Department of Agriculture Bulletin 341, p. 82. 
