FARM MANAGEMENT PRACTICE OF CHESTER COUNTY, PA. 41 
TABLE XVIII.—Percentage of income from fruit as related to labor income. 
iewcentiolimcome from) fruity. 542-25. --. 5-0-2 es eee eee None. 1 to 9. 10 to 19. 20-4. 
IN UTIN CLAOLOL ATTN Segoe seve rio rasa ike eens fe oie cian ieee wees 261 112 3 2 
PRAUISLEOS ADOT MCOMP i2\o\. 5 2/ocistaic =e ciate Be o/aia')S-sicln [aiden te os aa Syaye 95 113 85 88 
The numbers in the higher groups are too small to be significant, 
but in both groups the results are considerably below the average. 
It is quite probable that if cost accounts were kept with these 
orchards they would appear to be unprofitable. But the small acre- 
age requires little care, and the time devoted to them is seldom taken 
from more profitable endeavor. At any rate, the figures, both as 
to acreage and as to proportion of income, show clearly that on those 
farms on which fruit constitutes one of the minor enterprises the 
profits are greater than where it is entirely absent. At the same time 
they indicate that the proper position of this crop is that of a de- 
cidedly minor enterprise. We have here what appears to be a good 
illustration of the principle that within certain limits it pays well 
to produce home supplies and to conduct a properly diversified 
business. 
Truck crops.—As previously stated, kitchen gardens were not 
taken into account in this survey. Other studies, however, have 
shown that the farmers of this general region almost universally 
grow a liberal supply of vegetables for home use. Situated as this 
area is, not far from several large cities, it would naturally be 
expected to find considerable development of commercial truck 
growing here. But such is not the case. Only 23 of the 378 farms 
derived any income from this source. This general region is one in 
which commercial truck farming is perhaps as highly developed as 
it is anywhere in this country, but the amount of vegetables grown 
is so vast that the supply is practically always greater than the 
demand, except during the early part of the season for each of the — 
various truck crop products. It is therefore only those who can 
reach the market early who find the business profitable, and to do this 
requires a light sandy soil that warms up rapidly in the spring and 
thus conduces to earliness. The soils of this area are in the main 
heavy, and hence truck crops mature late in the season. Here and 
there, however, is a farm with more or less warm sandy land, and a 
few of these are devoted more or less to this type of farming. Some 
of them deliver their product by wagon to Wilmington, Del., a 
distance of 15 miles from the center of the survey area. Of the 
farms conducting a trucking business, only two have more than 20 
per cent of their acreage devoted to it. 
Twenty-three farms derived a portion of their income from the 
sale of vegetables. Three of them sold a small quantity of such 
