COST AND UTILIZATION OF POWER ON FARMS. 11 



The practices with regard to keeping workstock and raising colts 

 on these farms where tractors are owned are probably not exactly- 

 typical of all farms in the same communities, but the figures do indi- 

 cate that there has been a marked decrease in the number of colts 

 raised on these farms, and that at the present rate not enough colts 

 are being produced for replacement. 



SIZE OF FARM. 



On farms of similar type, the number of crop acres is closely corre- 

 lated with the amount of horse and tractor work, and for the pur- 

 pose of comparing these items the farms here have been arranged 

 according to the number of crop acres in each. The area in rotation 

 pasture during the year of the investigation has been included in 

 the crop area, so that the number of crop acres in a farm as used here 

 is the total number of acres in the regular rotation. Land in blue- 

 grass and other land which has been in pasture for a number of years, 

 even though improved and tillable, was not included in the crop area. 

 Of course, the rotation on different farms and in different areas 

 varied somewhat, and the practices on different farms also varied, so 

 that the number of crop acres in a farm did not determine entirely 

 the amount of power required for operating it. 



The number of crop acres in the different farms was as follows : 



Farms. Crop acres. 



7 Less than 80 



28 80 to 119 



71 120 to 159 



56 ... r 160 to 199 



47 200 to 239 



36 240 to 279 



19 280 to 319 



22 320 or more 



These figures indicate that most of the tractors owned in these 

 areas are on the larger farms. The average total size of all farms in 

 the 6 counties is not over 120 acres. 



On the average, the number of crop acres on the farms visited is 

 about 80 per cent of the total acres. If the same ratio of crop acres 

 to total acres holds for all farms in these counties, the average number 

 of crop acres for all farms is not far from 100. In other words, some- 

 thing like half the farms in these 6 counties contain 100 or less crop 

 acres. But only 35 of the 286 farms on which tractors are owned, 

 one-eighth of the total, contain less than 120 crop acres. 



The number of acres in the different crops on the farms of different 

 sizes is shown in Table 7. In each group, corn is the principal crop 

 and occupies a greater acreage than all the small grains combined. 



