Profits That Farmers Receive

Abstract

Many wrong impressions prevail in regard to the real profits in farming. The consumer in the city believes that the farmer must certainly be growing rich. His impression is due to the fact that he has to pay high prices for the things the farmer sells. He little realizes the amount of capital and labor utilized in the production of these products, neither does he consider carefully the difference between the price the farmer receives for the quart of milk or bushel of potatoes and what the consumer pays. Within the last few years the Office of Farm Management of the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, has made certain investigations with the view of determining the profits in farming and those factors that seem to control them. These investigations, called Farm Management Surveys, were made in representative farming areas in seven states, the results from which, with those found by the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell, give an excellent indication of the profits farmers receive for their year's work. Each district surveyed usually comprised a group of three or four townships and included all the farms within the area selected. In this way average conditions were studied, otherwise there would be a tendency on the part of the enumerator to select certain farms and pass by others. All data were collected bytrained agricultural students working under the supervision of persons acquainted with the work and who exercised the utmost care to obtain accurate results.