22 
BULLETIN 853, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Table XII shows the effect upon labor income of improving the 
quality of the stock and increasing the crop yields. Yields per 
acre and returns per productive animal unit were found to bear the 
same relation to labor income on dairy farms as on general farms; 
hence for the sake of brevity the figures for the two groups have 
been tabulated together. 
Table XII. — Effect of yields per acre and returns per productive animal unit on labor 
incomes, by size of farm, 349 farms, Grove City, Pa., area. 
LABOR INCOME. 
Live-stock index. 1 
Group. 
100 acres or under. 
Over 100 acres. 
100 or 
less. 
Over 
100. 
100 or 
less. 
Over 
100. 
Crop index: 1 
$41 
224 
$285 
452 
S134 
340 
8398 
Over 100 
576 
For definition of tliese terms see 
:e21. 
In order to eliminate the effect, of size of business as much as pos- 
sible, the farms were arranged into two groups. As would be expected, 
the groups having crop yields and live-stock returns above the aver- 
age made the most money. This table shows, moreover, that in an 
area like this, where so great a percentage of the returns is from live 
stock, it is better to make an effort to improve the quality of the 
live stock than to try to grow better crops and feed them to poor live 
stock. Those farmers operating either large or small farms whose 
crop yields were below the average of those produced in the region, 
but with live-stock receipts above the average, made higher labor 
incomes than those having live-stock receipts below the average 
and crop yields above the average. 
LIVE STOCK. 
We have seen in Table XII that the farms with crop yields and 
live-stock returns above the average made more than average labor 
incomes, and have observed the effect of increasing the receipts per 
unit of live stock. Table IV showed that over 14 per cent of the 
receipts on general farms and 38 per cent of the receipts on the 
dairy farms were from dairy products. It would seem, then, that 
one of the most direct and effective ways of increasing the income of 
the farmers of this region is to follow those practices that tend to 
increase production per cow. 
Accurate data were obtained on 265 farms, averaging 6 cows per 
farm, where the cows were kept for dairy purposes, which showed 
that the average sales of butter fat per cow was 116.6 pounds. This 
