Page:Sunset Magazine vol. 31.pdf/455

 average value of only $16.50 per acre of farm products, against the Willamette valley's $42.50. The average Mississippi valley farm has an annual income, from the sale of products, of just about $900—$1000 less than the average farm income in the Willamette valley. This Willamette valley result is gotten on farms which show an average of 45 acres in actual cultivation.



These figures are gross, of course. Net income, though, is what counts. The net income of a farm is what remains after all cost of crop production and all cost of family maintenance are taken away from the gross income. The average Mississippi valley farmer, after paying the cost of operating his farm and keeping his family, has nothing whatever left out of his crop returns. He's been growing rich upon the increase in the value of his land, not from the profits of farming. The Oregon Agricultural College has carefully compiled actual figures covering this proposition in the Willamette valley. Here they are:

The average farm of 5 to 20 acres has a gross income of $1451, and a net income of $852; the average 20 to 80-acre farm has a gross income of $2474, and a net income of $1511; the average farm of 80 to 160 acres has a gross income of $2970 and a net income of $1762; the average farm of 160 to 320 acres has a gross income of $3487 and a net income of $1908. That shows what farming is earning for the Willamette valley farmers, in net profit, after they've paid the expense of running their farms and the cost of providing for their families, including the items of food, clothing, doctors' bills, education, and all the rest, with an allowance of $50 a year for recreation and amusement. Can you beat that?

The type of these farms is very high,and the people are uncommonly comfortable and prosperous. Anybody may see that, merely by looking out of the car windows. Prosperity is written unmistakably across the whole face of the land—in the beautiful farm homes, in the neat towns, in every sign by which prosperity is interpreted. It's a prosperity which will bear analysis, too. Bearing out Portland and the county in which Portland lies, the banks of the Willamette valley today have deposits amounting to more than 822,000,000. That's mostly farmers' money. The value of all farm property in the valley was $225,000,000 in 1910, or $10,000 to the farm. Again leaving out Portland and Multnomah