Peanut-Cotton Farms Organization, Costs, and Returns, Southern Coastal Plains, 1944-60

Excerpt from the report Summary: The number of field crop and general farms in the southern Coastal Plains reported by the census declined about two-thirds from 1945 to 1959. These are chiefly peanut-cotton farms. The reduction resulted from a decline in the number of sharecroppers, the conversion of small commercial farms into part-time farms and rural residences, farm consolidation, and the changing of some of these farms to other types of commercial farming. Net farm incomes on peanut-cotton farms varied from a low of $1,500 per farm in 1946 to a high of $3,467 in 1958. Net incomes on these farms were generally low compared with incomes on other major types of farms in the United States for which comparable data are available. The return per $100 invested is as high as on most other farm types, but the size of farm is so small that the annual income is relatively low