BUSINESS ASPECTS OF FARMING 441 



work in a maple grove, clearing land, marketing timber, and 

 any other labor that adds to the value of the product concerned. 

 When crop labor declines, labor on stock, on the preparation of 

 seed, or on some other enterprise that brings a return should 

 be increased. In reality the employment of labor on enterprises 

 other than crop work often returns the greatest net profit of 

 all labor on the farm. It is also the solution of a large part 

 of farm-labor troubles, for it makes year-round work for farm 

 hands, or steady employment at profitable operations. 



The maintenance labor is fairly uniform throughout the 

 year. The crop labor shows great variations. It runs high 

 during March, June, and July, declines in August, rises again 

 in October and November on account of the corn harvest, and 

 runs low for the rest of the year. The vital point is to provide 

 other productive labor, for it is used to level up the labor 

 requirement for the year. 



In some typical farms which were studied three men were 

 required for three months, two men for two months, and during 

 the remainder of the year there was scarcely enough work to 

 keep the farmer himself busy. 



580. Horse labor. The profitable employment of horse labor 

 on the farm is as important as the proper use of man labor. 

 The average farm horse works only about three and a half hours 

 a day, 1 while the city horse works from eight to ten hours a day. 

 Thus the farmer is losing from five to seven hours' labor each 

 day on the horses he keeps. Estimating horse labor at five 

 cents an hour and counting eight hours a full day, the annual 

 loss sustained through the idleness of the horses on the average 

 one-hundred-and-sixty-acre farm is over four hundred dollars. 



One solution of the horse-labor problem is that already pointed 

 out for man labor. Another solution is to keep the kind of work 

 stock that will increase in value (such as young stock, or mares 

 that raise colts while they work). Often a study of the horse- 

 labor situation will show that the number of work horses can be 

 reduced by a readjustment of the cropping system. 



1 The Distribution of Farm Labor, Bulletin 6, University of Missouri. 



