UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 659 
\$f* OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY •\j« 
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY 
Contribution from the Office of Farm Management 
W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief 
Washington, D. C. 
June 17, 1918 
A FARM MANAGEMENT STUDY OF COTTON 
FARMS OF ELLIS COUNTY, TEX. 
By Hex E. Willard, Agriculturist. 
CONTENTS. 
Definitions and. explanation of terms 2 
Area surveyed # 4 
Tenure 14 
Type of farm 23 
Size of business 25 
Quality of farming 31 
Farm organization 39 
Cost of production 46 
This bulletin is based on data obtained in a survey of the business 
of 1'20 farms in Ellis County, Tex., in 1914. 1 In this survey the fol- 
lowing factors were taken into consideration : Value of farm prop- 
erty; proportion of capital invested in land, buildings, implements, 
and machinery; feed inventories and cash for operating expenses; 
labor requirements for all crops, and amount of time available for 
farm work ; receipts from various sources ; expenses of all kinds, and 
miscellaneous minor factors influencing profits. 
It must be understood that the records and observations concern- 
ing cotton farming in this publication apply to normal conditions 
before the European war. Due allowance must therefore be made 
concerning exceptional prices, conditions, end demands relating to 
agriculture at this time. The business hazard of a system of farm- 
ing which depends almost wholly upon a single crop for income has 
been exhibited in seasons of large cotton crops as in 1911 and notably 
in 1914, with accompanying decline in price to the cost of produc- 
tion or below it, and comparatively low yields of other necessary 
1 Acknowledgment is due Messrs. C. E. Hoke, C. L. Goodrich, A. G. Smith, A. D. McNair, 
M. A. Crosby, F. D. Stevens, and E. A. Boeger, of the Office of Farm Management, and Mi*. 
Walton Peteet, of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, who assisted in collect- 
ing the data presented in this bulletin. Mr. H. H. Bennett, of the U. S. Bureau of Soils, 
assisted materially in the location of the soils (fig. 2) to which the conclusions of this 
survey are applicable. 
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