though the opportunities for profitable custom hiring are limited on farm 

 C, Alternative 4, which combines self-ownership with some custom hiring, 

 would result in the lowest costs and the highest net farm income. This altern- 

 ative would also reduce the investment in machinery required. Complete 

 custom hiring of all cropping jobs would increase costs considerably, but 

 would have the advantage of eliminating the need for any capital investment 

 in machinery. 



Table 27. — Comparison of Investment and Costs and Returns for Alternative Patterns of 



Ownership of Machinery, Assuming Labor Has a Value of $1.00 an Hour and 



Labor Freed Through Custom Hiring Is Not Released, Farm C* 



Ownership 

 Pattern 



Total 

 Investment Ownership 

 in and 



Farm Operating 

 Machineryt CostsJ 



Difference Between Complete 

 Ownership and Alternatives 



Alternative 1 

 Owned by 

 the operator§ 



Alternative 3 

 Custom hired II 



Alternative 4 



Partly owned and 

 party custom hiredjl 



Alternative 5 

 Partly owned, 

 partly custom hired 

 and custom work 

 off the farm** 



Dollars Dollars 



9,325 2,614 



9,150 



9,150 



2,594 



2,.597 



Dollars 



3,241 + 627 



- 20 



17 



Dollars 



+0.23 



-0.01 



-0.01 



Dollars 



627 



+ 20 



+ 31 



*See text and text footnotes 18 and 19 for description of differences in costs and 

 income when hired labor freed through custom hiring is released. 



fAll equipment valued at 1949 purchase price. 



^Includes costs of hiring and doing custom work when applicable. 



§See Table 25 for a list of operations. 



||The same groups of operations were compared as in Table 25. 



IJSee text, page 36, for a description of operations. 



**See text, page 36, for a description of operations. 



In Table 27 it is assumed that labor freed through the hiring of custom 

 equipment can be productively employed and would earn Si. 00 an hour. 

 Complete custom hiring would reduce total costs slightly if the seasonal 

 hired labor could be released. Farm C has few profitable custom-hiring possi- 

 bilities and this in turn limits the opportunity to do custom work for other 

 farmers. Therefore, total machinery costs and net farm income with Altern- 

 atives 1, 4, and 5 would be similar. 



37 



