26 BULLETIN 99*7, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 



tractors were used for nothing but this class of work during the 

 year covered by the investigation. 



The location of the farms on which these 55 tractors were owned 

 is as follows: 



Madison County, Ohio 4 



Seneca County, Ohio 



Madison County, Ind 4 



Montgomery County, Ind 14 



Livingston County, 111 21 



Knox County, 111 - 12 



On most of the farms visited in Illinois and in Montgomery County, 

 Ind., there was no wood to cut. Silos were not as common in these 

 three areas as in the others. Less livestock was kept on the farms 

 in Livingston County, 111., than in any other area, and consequently 

 few of the tractors there were used for grinding feed. In fact, on 

 many of the farms in both Illinois areas the only belt work done was 

 thrashing and shelling corn, and the power for this work in most 

 cases was furnished by steam engines. 



The greater the percentage of farmers in a community who own 

 tractors, the less will be the opportunity of doing custom work with 

 them, even if the tractor owners desire to do it. Tractors were more 

 numerous in Livingston County, 111., than in any other area visited, 

 and only 25 of the 60 men interviewed there had used their tractors 

 for custom work during the year. - 



WORK DONE BY HORSES. 



The average number of days of horse labor used for the various 

 operations on the farms of different areas is shown in Table 21, and 

 the daily duty of one horse for each of the field operations in Table 22. 

 The daily duty of one horse, i. e., the number of acres covered per day 

 per horse, at the different operations varied somewhat in the different 

 areas, and to this extent the number of days of horse labor is not a 

 true index of the actual amount of work done by the horses. 



Plowing. — Since the tractors did 85 per cent of the plowing on these 

 farms, the average number of days of horse labor used for this work 

 is necessarily small. On the average it amounted to less than 20 

 days per year in each area except in Madison County, Ohio. The 

 greater use of horses for plowing in this area was due to the fact that 

 several of the farms were so large and the amount of spring plowing 

 so great that the tractors could not do all of it in the time available 

 and the horses were used regularly to supplement the tractors. Table 

 IX shows that the tractors covered slightly less ground per day in fall 

 plowing than in spring plowing. Similarly, the average daily duty 

 of one horse was slightly less for fall plowing than for spring plowing. 



