Excerpts from the report Introduction: The success of the farm business may depend as much upon the details of the operation of the major enterprises as it does upon the combination of the enterprises. Farm-management investigations have placed much emphasis upon the combination of enterprises; whereas the adjustment of the details of each farm enterprise has received relatively little attention, largely because of the difficulties of the necessary economic and statistical analysis. The purpose of this bulletin is to present a method of studying the effect of variations in details of farm practice upon the profitableness of the farm business. The method of study presented in this bulletin begins with a detailed analysis of the variations in methods and practices (input variations) , and the effect of these variations upon the product (output per unit of input). The basic data thus obtained are then used to determine the least-cost combination of inputs by applying value rates to the inputs and outputs at various combinations of the input factors. The least-cost combination is that combination which will produce the product at the least cost per unit of output.