AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF THE PRODUCTION OF CANNING CROPS 33 



LABOR REQUIREMENTS 



The land is plowed and fitted until a good seedbed is prepared, spring-tooth 

 and disk harrows and rollers being used according to the nature of the soil. 

 The peas are planted with a grain drill. In practically all cases the land is 

 rolled after the peas have been drilled. This is done to firm the soil 

 around the seed, and also to smooth the land as much as possible to 

 facilitate harvesting. The average hours required to perform the various 

 operations are given in table 26. The hours given are not the average 

 time for those doing the work, but were obtained by dividing the total 

 number of hours spent on the operation by the total number of acres. The 

 average hours required for performing a particular operation once may 

 be obtained by dividing the average hours as given, by the number of times 

 the operation was performed. 



TABLE 26. AVERAGE HOURS PER ACRE REQUIRED TO PERFORM VARIOUS OPERATIONS 

 ON THE PEA CROP ON 262 FARMS GROWING 1468 ACRES IN 1920 



The methods of fitting in the Orleans, Genesee, and Ontario areas were 

 similar. The man hours per acre were lower, and the horse hours were 

 higher, in the Genesee area than in the other sections (table 27). This 

 was due partly to the practice of driving more horses per man in the Genesee 

 area, thereby increasing the amount of work done per man in a day. 

 Also, larger acreages of peas were grown per farm in the Genesee area, 

 which might be expected to reduce the hours spent per acre. In the 

 Steuben area the land is stcnier than in the other areas and more time 

 was required to plow an acre. After the land was plowed, however, less time 

 was spent to prepare it for drilling. The only tillage that most of the 

 land received was harrowing from two to four times. On a few farms 

 in one locality of this area, peas were planted after potatoes without 

 plowing. The yields on these farms were as good as the average of the 

 region. This was done only on a loose, light soil that had been well 

 tilled the previous year. 



