O' 



torn work, it would be profitable to custom-hire corn planting, grass seeding 

 and corn harvesting. Total costs for owning and operating other cropping 

 machinery and for the custom work hired would be $861 per year compared 

 with $950 if all the machines were owned (Tables 12 and 14), Capital 

 invested in cropping machinery would be reduced by about 27 percent. 



Table 14. — Equipment Combination and Annual Cash Costs for Equipment Services 



When Part of the Cropping Equipment Is Owned and Part Is Hired, 



Assuming Farm Labor Is Not a Cost, Farm A 



The corn planter, grass seeder, corn binder, ensilage cutter, and auxili- 

 ary power unit, the new prices of which total $1,990, could be disinvested, 

 or not purchased, depending on the circumstances. 



If there were some alternative uses for the labor on farm A, the situ- 

 ation would differ and more jobs could be profitably hired. Assuming that 

 freed labor could be used to return $1.00 an hour in some other use, the 

 additional jobs that could be profitably hired would include plowing, harrow- 

 ing, and cultivation of corn (Table 15). These and the jobs mentioned above 

 are not performed in a regular work sequence and there is some latitude 



22 



