FARMERS' EARNINGS IN SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA 25 
in efficiency, differences in the number of cows went with increasingly 
large differences in earnings. Thus, in the group with dairy indexes 
between $100 and SI 50 the farmers with 20 to 25 cows earned $720 
more, on the average, than did the farmers with 5 to 10 cows; in 
the group with indexes of $150 to $200, farmers with 20 to 25 cows 
earned $1,100 more than did the farmers with 5 to 10 cows. 
There were other differences between the farms falling in the 
different groups. The farms with more cows had, in general, more 
crop acres and more pasture. For herds of the same size but with 
different dairy indexes there was little difference in the other factors. 
In general, the farms with higher dairy indexes also had higher crop 
indexes, 11 but, as has already been shown, this latter factor had only 
a slight effect upon operator's earnings. On the other hand, the 
farms with higher dairy index had, in general, a little smaller acreage 
of crops per cow, and this would partially offset the effect of the higher 
yields. Altogether, the effects of factors other than the size or effi- 
ciency of the dairy upon the averages shown in Table 22 are very 
slight, and these averages may be considered as a satisfactory state- 
ment of the effect of these two factors on operator's earnings. 12 
RELATION OF 1922-23 PRICES TO FACTORS DETERMINING FARMERS' EARNINGS 
Table 22 may be interpreted as showing that, unless each cow 
produced products worth at least $50 more than the feed she con- 
sumed, the farmer had left as operator's earnings less than the value 
of his labor. Further, the statistical study showed that it made very 
little difference on what size farm a given size herd was kept so far 
as earnings went or whether the feed was raised or purchased; earn- 
ings depended upon the size and efficiency of the dairy and not on 
the crop enterprises. 
These results for 1922-23 should not be taken to mean that farmers 
in Chester County do not ordinarily add to their incomes by their 
crop enterprises. In 1922-23 they could buy feed for dairy cows 
just as cheaply as they could raise it, and they did not get a high 
enough price for the crops that they sold to make additional earnings 
by raising more crops. But it must be remembered that this year was 
one of very low prices for the principal crops of the section, as was 
shown in Table 1, and one of fairly favorable prices for the principal 
livestock products (Table 2). In years when crops are selling at 
higher relative prices it seems that the crop enterprises as well as the 
livestock enterprises would contribute materially to the earnings, 
even though they did not during the year of the survey. 
FACTORS WHICH AFFECT RETURNS FROM THE DAIRY ENTERPRISE 
Of all the factors which affect the earnings on dairy farms in this 
region, the efficiency with which the dairy enterprise is conducted 
has been shown to be the most important. For that reason it is 
worth while to examine the specific practices on different farms which 
were responsible for differences in this factor. 
» The correlation between dairy index and crop index was r=0.23±0.04. 
i 2 The average crop acres, pasture acres, crop index, and dairy index for dairy farms classified by dairy 
index and number of cows are shown in Tables 50 to 54, pages 61 and 62. 
74652°— 26f i 
