248 



Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



operations, wrote to 25,000 farmers in all parts of the country, asking 

 them to report on the work accomplished by their men, horses, plowing 

 machinery and equipment. In addition, representatives of the depart- 

 ment went into the field and timed crews at work. The returns were 

 then averaged and figures obtained for a day's work in many kinds of 

 operations. These figures as averages represent neither a minimum 

 nor a maximum that can be expected of an individual worker who may 

 be unusually skilled and energetic, or may be unskilled and not a quick 

 worker. Moreover, because a great bulk of replies were from states 

 where climate, soil and farming conditions are a little better than the 

 average, the investigators felt that the actual average was possibly too 

 high for all parts of the country, and therefore gave in addition what is 

 called an adjusted figure, which probably represents more nearly the 

 amount of work that might normally be set as a standard. Following 

 are the averages and the adjusted figures for the various haying opera- 

 tions : 



MOWING, RAKING, TEDDING, AND COCKING. 



TABLE No. 27. What constitutes a normal day's work in mowing, raking, tedding, and cocking 



hay, giving the average acreages reported for sizes of machines most frequently used. 

 [Net hours in the field: For mowing, 9.52; for raking, 8.44; for tedding, 8.26; and for cocking, 9.12] 



The adjusted acreage figures given are the investigators' computa- 

 tion of a fair average after discounting abnormal performances and tak- 

 ing into account the unusual work done on farms which afford especially 

 good working conditions. 



In mowing hay, the two-horse unit is practically universal. The limit 

 of mechanical efficiency appears to be approached as the sickle reaches 

 seven feet in width. It appears that a two-horse team is about 45 per 

 cent more efficient than one horse when used with rakes of the widths re- 

 ported. The eight-foot width is the most used with one horse and the 

 ten-foot width with two horses. In tedding hay with a hay tedder or 

 kicker, two horses appear to be 45 per cent more efficient than one. 



