COST AND UTILIZATION OF POWER ON FARMS. 



19 



As the size of farm, and consequently the amount of plowing, 

 increased, the percentage of those who did it all with tractors de- 

 creased. Sixty-seven per cent of the men with less than 160 crop 

 acres, 52 per cent of those with 160 to 239 crop acres, and only 35 

 per cent of those with 240 or more crop acres did all their spring 

 plowing with their tractors. 



The number of acres plowed with horses on the smaller farms, as 

 shown in Table 14, indicates that on many of these farms the horses 

 were used only for finishing or for plowing small and irregular fields. 

 On many of the larger farms, however, the amount of spring plowing 

 to be done was so great that the tractors could not do it all in the 

 time available, and horses were worked regularly at plowing during 

 the plowing season. This condition existed on nearly all of the 22 

 farms with 320 or more crop acres, where an average of 63 acres of 

 spring plowing was done with horses. 



Fall 'plowing. — Table 16 shows the number of men on farms of 

 different sizes who did all their fall plowing with tractors, those who 

 used both tractors and horses, and those who used horses only. 



Table 16. — Kind of power used for fall plowing on farms of different sizes. 



Size of farms (crop acres). 



Number 



of 

 farmers. 



Farmers 

 using 



tractors 

 only. 



Farmers 



using 

 tractors 



and 

 horses. 



Farmers 

 using 

 horses 

 only. 





2 

 20 

 62 

 42 

 38 

 29 

 16 

 16 



2 

 16 

 55 

 35 

 34 

 23 

 15 

 10 







80 to 119 



4 

 6 

 5 

 3 

 5 

 1 

 3 





120 to 159 



1 



160 to 199 



2 



200 to 239 



1 



240 to 279 



1 



280 to 319 







3 







Total 



225 



100 



190 



84 



27 

 12 



S 





4 







A much larger percentage used tractors exclusively for fall plowing 

 than for spring plowing, and no marked tendency was shown on the 

 large farms to supplement the tractors with horses. Except where 

 land is being plowed for winter wheat, the season for fall plowing is 

 long, compared with the season for spring plowing. Furthermore, 

 the hot weather which usually occurs during the fall plowing season 

 and the harder plowing give the tractor a somewhat greater advan- 

 tage over horses than it has in spring plowing. 



Disking. — Though the tractors were used more for plowing than 

 for any other operation on these farms, 73 per cent of the total disk- 

 ing was done with them. On the farms where winter wheat followed 

 corn and occupied an important place in the rotation, the seed bed 

 was prepared almost entirely with the tractor and disk. The method 

 usually employed was first to cut and shock the corn and then disk 



