paying Saturday overtime to men willing to work, because overtime 
payments are at a higher rate than those for ordinary time, but they 
overlook entirely the fact that the Agricultural Wages Board provides 
no overtime payments to the horses, and thus the cheapest horse-labour 
on the farm is that performed on Saturday afternoon at overtime rates 
of pay to the horsemen. 
Kyeryone realises, of course, the importance of keeping horses 
busy, but not everyone thinks how heavily the cost of manual labour 
is increased by idle horses. The maximum number of working days in 
a year is 312, a total obviously impossible of attainment in practice. 
Such records as are available show that the days actually worked by 
_ horses on the farm will not usually exceed four-fifths of the maximum. 
More time may be lost in summer than in winter, a fact not generally 
_ realised, and the period of maximum unemployment falls between hay- 
making and harvest. The busy seasons are, of course, the autumn 
_and the spring, when the preparation of the ground for winter and 
_ spring corn is going actively forward. In the year 1918 figures were 
collected to show the percentage of days worked compared with ‘ pos- 
4 sible days ’ in each month on four farms distributed pretty evenly over 
; England, and the results, thrown together, are as follows :— 
: M.—AGRICULTURE. 203 
a 
| Percentace or Days Workep to Possisue Horss-pays on Four 
Farms In 1918. 
% % 
January. E : 5 . 67 July. : : : Bist 
February . : f . : 982 August . ; : : . 65 
March y ; ; : ae itl September. ; ; . 78 
_ April : ; : , . 74 October ; ; ‘ ah 80 
May : . : : ah Bz) November. : : sy 07 
June : ! : j 256 December. : : . 64 
Although the figures represent an average of four farms, it is note- 
worthy that the results on the individual holdings varied one from 
another in degree only, and that the months of maximum and mini- 
™mum employment were the same in every case. The loss of time is 
far more serious than many people realise. The maximum possible 
horse-days in the year are 312, and the cost per day of the horses on 
the above four farms on this basis was 2s. 7d. whereas, owing to the 
_time lost, the cost on the basis of days worked was 3s. 7d. | Whilst 
some difference is inevitable, so great a discrepancy as these figures 
reveal can be avoided by skilful management, and one of the tests of 
_ the farmer’s efficiency is provided by an examination of the distribution 
of horse-labour throughout the year on his farm. His cropping and 
other work should be so contrived as to provide for the uniform 
utilisation of horse-labour month by month. Under skilful manage- 
ment the differences in the number of days worked by horses from year 
to year are extraordinarily slight. On an East Midlands farm, employ- 
‘ing twenty-three horses, the days worked per horse during the past 
six years have been as follows :— 
‘Year J - 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 1916-17 1917-18 1918-19 
‘Days worked pe 
7 horse , : 250-25 247 243 236 243 244-5 
Q 2 
