306 THE BOOK OF CORN 



invested capital of the farm. Treated in this way the 

 charge for horse power in crop production is the 

 annual cost of their maintenance and the annual depre- 

 ciation of their value. The farms included in the 

 schedule of this investigation aggregated 26,522 acres, 

 the number of horses required in conducting the farm- 

 ing operations was 781, their total value being $39,525, 

 an average of $50.60 per head. The value per farm 

 acre of the horses necessary to farming operations was 

 $1.49. The monthly cost of team maintenance, as 

 shown above, was $8.21, making the annual cost of 

 maintenance of the necessary complement of horses for 

 the farm work $38,472, or a cost per farm acre of $1.45. 



Taxation — The rate of taxation per acre of the 

 corn land is ascertained by securing the total taxation 

 on the land, buildings, stock and implements, the fixed 

 capital, and apportioning the taxes equitably between 

 this total farm value and the value of the corn land 

 alone. The average rate of taxation is 28.3 cents per 

 acre, ranging from 3 cents per acre in Virginia to 79 

 cents in Massachusetts. This seems a wide range, but 

 when the value per acre of the land is considered the 

 taxation is more equitable, being .6 of 1 per cent of the 

 value in Virginia and 1.3 per cent in Massachusetts. 



Rent, Interest and Implements — The average cash 

 rental per acre of land similar to that reported upon 

 was returned at $3.05, ranging from an average of $1 

 in Virginia to $5.25 in Pennsylvania. The average 

 value per acre of the corn land was returned at $47.71, 

 and on this valuation the cash rental equals 6.4 per 

 cent. The average rate of interest at which loans could 

 be secured was reported at 7.1 per cent, ranging from 

 5 per cent in New England to 10 per cent in Texas. 



The quality and effectiveness of farm implements 

 varies greatly and the amount of fixed capital in- 

 vested in such machinery varies equally. From the 



