10 BULLETIN 1466, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE 
The limited time and means at hand would not permit of study 
and analysis sufficient to establish the applicability and the effective- 
ness of the cost-consumption unit scale to all of the records available. 
The family or household has been accepted as an adequate basis for 
comparisons in this study. 
Owing to the exclusion of hired helpers, boarders, and occasionally 
relatives and others included in the household, the farm family is 
often smaller and of less variable make-up than the farm household. 
Variations in the average size of family for the different groups of 
homes studied, appear slightly less significant than corresponding 
variations in the average size of household. From a social and from 
an economic viewpoint, size of family seems to be as satisfactory as 
size of household as a basis for comparisons. 
CLASSIFICATION OF GOODS USED 
Many questions arise in connection with the classification of goods 
used by the farm family. In fact, no thoroughly satisfactory scheme 
of classification of goods consumed in the household in general has 
yet been devised. Practice is more or less uniform as regards food 
and clothing, although different investigators subdivide these head- 
ings differently. The items included under housing vary consider- 
ably, and those grouped as operation still more. Some authorities 
make a separate division for furnishings and equipment. Others 
consider that the more permanent articles, such as dining room or 
bedroom sets, belong under investment or housing, and that things 
more frequently renewed belong under operation. Personal goods 
are sometimes made to include those for the maintenance of health, 
and for various minor goods, such as stationery or toilet articles, 
otherwise placed under operating, clothing, or unclassified. 
The goods which are most difficult to classify and on which opin- 
ion and practice are most divided are those for the less material 
needs. Various designations have been used for this group of goods, 
perhaps the most generally adopted being advancement. Here are 
usually found the items connected with school and college attend- 
ance : general self -improvement ; physical and social recreation ; 
religious, philanthropic, civic, and social organizations; attendance 
at lectures, concerts, games, and entertainments of various kinds; and 
travel for pleasure or personal improvement. Savings and the items 
concerning maintenance of health should also be placed here, accord- 
ing to some workers, although others prefer to keep these separate. 
A further difficulty comes in connection with goods that serve a 
mixed or indefinite purpose. The cost of the telephone, for example, 
should usually be divided between the farm business and the home : 
but even as used for the home, it serves partly to carry on the busi- 
ness of the household and partly to keep up the social contacts of 
the family. Shall the household charges for it then be listed as 
operation expenses or advancement, or must one divide the cost 
between the two ? In case of musical instruments, a piano seems to 
belong with furnishings; but how about a cornet? Some investi- 
gators tend to lump these under sundries, miscellaneous, or inci- 
dentals; but careful workers are inclined to distribute them as far 
as possible under more definite heads, so that the unclassifiable goods 
may represent a very small proportion of the total except in the case 
of some emergency. 
