FARM MANAGEMENT PRACTICE OF CHESTER COUNTY, PA. 61 
tive work units with 1 increasing size of farm is perhaps the principal 
reason for the average increase in labor income. 
Not only does the large farm furnish a larger amount of profitable 
labor, but it is easier for the owner to secure more efficient use of 
labor on the larger farms. That is, he does not have to exert himself 
so much to find profitable employment for himself and the labor 
available to him. This is shown in the fifth column of Table 
XX VII, under the heading “ Crop acres per man.” Although these 
farms are all organized in approximately the same manner and, on 
the whole, are conducted in much the same way, the number of 
crop acres per man in the group of smallest farms is only 13.7, while 
on the largest farms it is 31.1 acres, there being a general increase in 
acres per man with increase in size of farm. On the larger farms the 
laborers devoted a greater proportion of their time to really profit- 
able employment. This is another reason why the large farm is 
easier to make profitable than the small one. 
The next column of the table, headed “ Man labor per crop acre,” 
shows much the same thing, though from a different viewpoint. On 
the first group of farms—that is, the very small farms—the whole 
amount cf man labor done on the farm costs $20.74 for every acre of 
crops grown. ‘This includes all the labor of the farm, not merely 
the crop labor. As the size of farm increases the amount of the total 
farm labor per acre of crops gradually decreases until in the next 
to the last group it amounts to only $11.80 per crop acre. In the next 
group it is somewhat larger, these very large farms—that is, for this 
region—perhaps being somewhat less efficiently managed than the 
farms somewhat smaller. This column merely shows that on the 
larger farms the labor is more efficiently applied. The next column, 
headed “ Value of labor per month per man,” shows that the larger 
the farm the more the farmer can afford to pay in wages. The 
figures in this column are based on wages actually paid and the 
farmer’s estimate of the value of his own labor and that of the unpaid 
members of his family. The larger farms are able to pay higher 
wages and, at the same time, make greater profits. The next column 
shows the crop acres per work horse. Here again we have a great 
increase in efficiency of work horses as the size of the farm increases, 
the number of crop acres per work horse being approximately twice 
as great in the last group as in the first. The column headed “ Work 
horses per man ” shows again that the man labor on the larger farms 
is more efficient than it is on the smaller, the average number of work 
horses per man increasing with the size of the farm. 
When it comes to the matter of expenses the large farms again 
have the advantage, as shown in the column headed “ Value of ma- 
chinery per crop acre.” We shall see later that the small farms are 
not as adequately equipped with labor-saving machinery as the large 
