COST AND UTILIZATION OF POWER ON" FARMS. 5 



the greatest amount of horse labor in the shortest time on most of 

 these farms. However, on only 105 of the 286 farms were all the 

 workstock used for cultivation, and on only 38 of the remainder 

 were they all used for any other one operation. On just half of the 

 farms the workstock were not all used for any one operation. 



Individual farms varied greatly in the cost of power furnished by 

 both horses and tractors; and by more careful management many 

 farmers could doubtless reduce this cost. Repair costs and fuel 

 consumption of the tractors in many cases could have been reduced 

 by more careful operation. The cost of keeping workstock could 

 have been reduced on many farms by more careful feeding practices. 

 The facts that on 20 of the farms the workstock did less than 40 days 

 of work per head during the year and that on half of the farms they 

 were not all used for any single operation indicate that the greatest 

 possible use was not being made of the available power represented 

 by the horses. Either more work could have been accomplished by 

 more efficient use of the horses on hand, or the number of horses kept 

 could have been reduced and the cost of the operation of the farm 

 correspondingly decreased. 



The average annual cost of power for the drawbar work on the 

 home farm which was done with tractors was equal to the cost of 

 keeping 2.1 head of workstock, and this is practically the average 

 number displaced per farm. On the basis of present prices, how- 

 ever, the cost of keeping workstock has declined considerably more 

 than the cost of operating tractors. 



Since, during the year covered by the investigation, the cost of 

 power on the average farm was no greater than if it had all been fur- 

 nished by horses, any saving in man-labor costs, any gain due to 

 getting a larger amount of work done in a given time, and possibly 

 other advantages connected with the use of tractors which can not 

 be measured directly in dollars and cents, might be considered clear 

 profit. On many of the farms, however, where there was no change in 

 acreage, and where no workstock was displaced it is doubtful if such 

 gains were great enough to balance the cost of operating the tractors. 



AREAS IN WHICH INVESTIGATION WAS MADE. 



Table 1 shows the counties visited in each State, the number of 

 farmers from whom records were obtained, and the average size of 

 their farms. The location of the counties is shown in figure 1. 



In each area the average size of the farms where tractors are 

 owned is considerably greater than the average size of all farms, and 

 this fact must be borne in mind in interpreting any of the data con- 

 tained in this bulletin. The proportions of the entire acreage de- 

 voted to different crops, the practices followed in preparing the 

 ground, planting, cultivating, and harvesting the crops on the farms 



