COST AND UTILIZATION OF POWER ON FARMS. 43 



been charged to the workstock at the 1921 prices shown above, the 

 cost per farm would have been about $400, a reduction of about 55 

 per cent below the 1920 cost. Assuming no change in other costs 

 and credits, the 1921 cost per farm of maintaining the workstock 

 would be about $575, or $85 per head. 



Chores. — The total time spent in feeding and caring for the work- 

 stock amounted to 430 hours per farm for the year, or about 63 hours 

 per head. The figures given in Table 28 represent the value of this 

 time at 25 cents per hour. This rate is approximately the average 

 value per hour of all farm labor in this section during the year of the 

 survey. It must be remembered that all this work was done either 

 by the farmer himself or by the regular labor without any actual cash 

 outlay for it, and that a considerable part of the time thus used 

 would not have been profitably employed otherwise. 



Depreciation. — The total value of all workstock on the farm at the 

 time of the investigation, the value of the workstock on the farm at 

 the beginning of the year covered by the investigation, the cost of 

 any which had been bought during the year, and the amount received 

 for any which had been sold were obtained from each farmer. Colts 

 which were foaled during the year of the investigation were credited 

 to the workstock at their value (minus the breeding fee) at the time 

 of the survey. All these figures were combined to obtain the total 

 appreciation or depreciation of the workstock on the farm. 



On all the 286 farms a total of only 111 colts had been foaled 

 during the year. (See Table 6.) The average value of these colts 

 at the time of the survey was not far from $50 and the breeding fee 

 in most cases had been $15. Thus, for all farms, the credit for colts 

 amounted to about $2 per head of workstock. 



On this basis the workstock had depreciated on 154 of the farms 

 during the year of the investigation by an average of $136 per farm. 

 They had appreciated on 64 farms by an average of $92 per farm, and 

 there had been no change of value on the remaining 68 farms, thus 

 making a net depreciation of about $53 per farm, or $7.79 per head. 

 This depreciation amounted to a little over 5 per cent of the value 

 of the workstock. If the credit for colts had not been included the 

 depreciation would have amounted' to nearly 7 per cent of the value 

 of the workstock. 



Only a part of the feed consumed by the workstock is salable, and 

 a large part of the costs other than feed do not represent any outlay 

 of cash on the part of the farmer. Likewise the manure produced, 

 for which a credit of $15 per head has been allowed, had no sale value 

 on a large majority of these farms. 



The corn, oats, and hay consumed by the workstock was practically 

 all salable, and in most cases the straw which was included as part of 

 the ration could have been sold. Stover, however, could rarely have 



