44 



BULLETIN 997, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



been sold; the pasture, both grass and stalk, charged to the horses is 

 principally a by-product of the general system of farming practiced 

 in this section, and only in isolated cases could it have actually been 

 sold. 



On this basis the value of salable feed consumed during the year was 

 $113 per head or about $772 per farm. On nearly all the farms, the 

 only other costs which involved either the use of salable material or 

 labor or the expenditure of cash, were the shoeing and veterinary bills, 

 which together amounted to $22 per farm. Thus salable feed and 

 cash expense together amounted on the average to about 74 per cent 

 of the net cost of keeping the workstock. 



Cost of horse labor. — The cost per day of horse labor on each farm 

 was found by dividing the total cost of keeping the workstock on 

 that farm by the number of days of horse labor used during the year. 

 For all farms the average cost per day was $2.43. The average length 

 of the working day for the horses was nearly 10 hours (see page 12), 

 and consequently the cost per hour of horse labor on these farms 



Cost per Head 



i 



Number of Farms 



) 20 30 40 50 60 70 



Less than $75... 

 $75 - 99 

 100 - 124 

 125 - 149 

 150 - 174 

 175 - 199 

 200 - 224 

 225 - 249 

 250 and over... 















































































Fig. 12.— Variation in 1920 cost per head of keeping horses. 



was between 24 and 25 cents. The cost per day on any farm is de- 

 dependent upon the number of workstock kept, the cost of keeping 

 them, and the number of days work during the year. The different 

 farms varied greatly in the cost per head of keeping workstock, 

 owing to variations in the different items of cost. The cost per head 

 of feed was twice as great on some of the farms as on others. It has 

 already been pointed out that farms of the same size varied consider- 

 ably in the number of workstock kept, and that similar variations 

 occurred in the number of days the horses worked per year. Figures 

 12 and 13 show the variations in the cost per head of keeping the work- 

 stock and in the cost per day of horse labor on these farms. It is 

 apparent that by more careful management both the cost per day of 

 horse labor and the total cost of keeping the workstock could have 

 been reduced on many farms. 



The acres per day covered by 1 horse at various operations on 

 these farms have been given in Table 22. The cost per day of horse 

 labor divided by the number of acres covered by one horse gives the 



