48 BULLETIN 341, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
veal calves. The owners called these beef cattle. These farms were | 
operated by men who had no help. The labor incomes on all of them 
were very unsatisfactory. , 
Twenty-seven farms were found on which steers were fed. The 
percentage of receipts from steers on each of the 27 farms exceeds 20 
on only 10 farms and 40 on 2 farms. Steer feeding is thus a busi- 
ness little followed in this section. This of itself is an indication 
that conditions are not generally favorable to the steer-feeding busi- 
ness, especially when it is remembered that in the early days this 
was a leading industry in Chester County. Its absence is not merely ~ 
due to lack of knowledge of the business, but to lack of economic 
conditions favoring it. We have also seen that in the main this busi- 
ness tends to gravitate to the larger farms. It appears especially on 
those farms that are somewhat too large for one-man dairy farms, 
and again more commonly on farms too large for two-man dairy 
farms. It is an extensive system of farming. Ordinarily the profits 
from it are so small that the small farmer can not well make a living 
at it. It appears, however, to be a fairly satisfactory business on 
iarge farms in this area. 
The relation between steer feeding and the resulting labor incomes 
is shown in Table XXIV: 
TABLE XXIV.—Percentage of income from steers as related to labor income. 
Per cent of income from steers.............-..---- A or So arcu eee | None. | 1t019. | 20+. 
| | 
amberiniiarms = cuss wal |< e ESt o e ee  k eee Sen ee | 351 17 10 
AG MSLOG Aa bOLANCOMC:. 32 oo- SoS 2.8 oe ee Se en ee 101 | 94 | 86 
Three hundred and fifty-one of the farms fed no steers and made 
profits slightly greater than the average. The 17 farms deriving 
from 1 to 19 per cent of their income from steers made labor incomes 
6 per cent below the average. The 10 farms deriving a larger share 
of income from this source made labor incomes 14 per cent below the 
average. These results, though based on rather meager data, are 
consistent with those found in other surveys where small farms are 
the rule. 
Sheep.—As previously stated, sheep were found on only 14 of these 
farms. Six of them had flocks of breeding ewes numbering from 35 
to 55 head. The others had only a few head each. The numbers are 
too small to give very significant results in a comparison of labor — 
incomes on farms with and without sheep, but this fact of itself indi- 
cates that these animals are poorly adapted to the conditions prevail- 
ing here. The 364 farms having no sheep made labor incomes 1 per 
cent above the average. Twelve farms deriving 1 to 19 per cent of 
their income from sheep made labor incomes 26 per cent below, and 
at . 
AMA ec Hdl 20 poy. 
