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of the total income reported by farm households; it averaged $657 per farm,

Low cash farm incomes were associated with advanced age of the operator,

absence of able-bodied males in the household, temporary adverse conditions,

voluntary deferment of cash income while inventory values were increased, and

production for home use rather than for sale.

 When all households were considered, cash farm income did not tend

to increase with years of schooling of the head of the household as did total

family income. This is partly because some of the better educated operators

reported low cash farm income in 1956 due to temporary conditions or voluntary

deferment in order to build-up inventory values. Also, individuals with more

schooling may have farmed less intensively in order to devote time and talents

to higher paying nonfarm jobs,

 Parm wage income contributed less than 6 percent of the total income

 reported by all survey households. Less than one-fourth of the households

 reported this source of income, and the earnings per household averaged about

 $600 in 1956.

 Work on other farms appears to have been locally competitive in 1956.

 Income from this source was obtained by 271 individuals representing both races,

 both sexes, and varying ages and levels of education, The characteristic most

 commonly found among these individuals was that nearly all reported no physical

 limitation in the type of work performed. Thus this type of employment was

 obtained by young folks still in school, by able-bodied males and females

 chiefly from 30 to 54 years of age, and especially by nonfarm rather than by

 farm residents.

 About 60 percent of the total cash income came from nonfarm employ-

 ment. The average per household was $2,460, with white families averaging

 $2,975 compared with $1,372 for nonwhite families.