FARMING ON CUT-OVER LANDS. 11 
80.1 and 100 acres, with an average of 88.9 acres, gives much better 
results. In this group the farmer receives $195 a year for his labor, 
and the farmer and his family receive $467 a year for their labor. 
If free of debt, they have a family income of $939 on which to live. 
While there are individual farms of all sizes that are financially 
successful, this is the first group of farms in the series that has large 
enough area under cultivation to produce satisfactory average 
incomes. The next group with greater tillable area shows larger 
net returns, and the last group has an average tillable area of 179.5 
acres, a labor income of $495 and a family income of $1,586. These 
would be considered very satisfactory incomes for any agricultural 
section of the country. None of the farms studied in this district 
was too large in tillable acres. Briefly stated, the figures show that 
for the northern cut-over district a farm with 50 acres of rich land 
under cultivation usually produces a good living for a family of 
average size, and that 90 acres of rich land under cultivation is a 
fair foundation for business success. 
Figure 6 shows in graphic form the data given in Table 2. 
The curves show that the incomes advance about in proportion to 
the increase of tillable area, except that the incomes advance very 
slowly as the cultivated area is increased from 50 to 70 acres. The 
slow gain in income at that stage is doubtless due to the fact that 
there is a transition period between the small farm and the large 
farm where labor and equipment are used less efficiently than on farms 
that are either below or above that size. 
UNIMPROVED LAND. 
Some of the more important problems of the cut-over district are 
in connection with the utilization and development of the unim- 
proved farm area. Table 1 shows that the average size of farm in 
the district is 108 acres and that approximately one-half this area 
is tillable and about one-half is nontillable. Table 4 shows that the 
group of farms having less than 40 acres tillable made minus labor 
incomes and only the groups having 80 acres or more of tillable land 
made a labor income above $100. This table further shows that in 
the first group the average farm area is only 60 acres, about one-half 
of which is tillable. The second group has an average farm area of 
77 acres with less than one-half tillable. Both these groups made 
minus labor incomes. These figures bring out the fact that more 
of the unimproved farm area should be brought under cultivation. 
Indeed this is the most logical way of increasing the farm business 
since it not only increases the earning capacity of the farm but at 
the same time cuts down the burden of unimproved land the farm 
must carry. 
