COST AND UTILIZATION OF POWER ON FARMS. 



59 



Table 47. — Relation of number of horses disposed of to size of farm and to crop acres 



per horse. 





Number 

 of farms. 



Crop 



acres per 



farm. 



Crop acres per 

 horse. 



Number of horses disposed of. 



Before 



purchase 

 of tractor. 



After 

 purchase 

 of tractor. 







44 

 21 

 41 

 24 

 19 

 23 



205.9 

 155.5 

 178.3 

 178.5 

 187.6 

 209.6 



23.4 

 23.2 

 22.1 

 20.3 

 21.4 

 18.3 



23.4 



1. 



27.2 



2 



29.4 



3 



30.8 



4 



39.2 





37.4 







All 



172 



187.8 



21.5 



29.0 







Some of the men who did not dispose of any workstock had owned 

 only 3 or 4 head and probably needed all of them for some one oper- 

 ation even with a tractor on the place (see Table 26) . This was not 

 true of nearly all of the 44, however. The table shows that they 

 had not been keeping appreciably fewer workstock in proportion to 

 the size of their farms than had most of the men who reduced their 

 workstock after the purchase of tractors; and that the number of 

 crop acres per horse at the time of the investigation was less than on 

 the other farms. 



INCREASE IN INVESTMENT DUE TO PURCHASE OF TRACTORS. 



Table 48 shows the net increase in investment due to the purchase 

 of tractors. 



The costs of the tractors and of the implements purchased for use 

 with them are given on page 46. The owners of both the 2-plow 

 and the 3-plow tractors who did not change the size of their farms 

 disposed of 2.2 head of workstock on the average. The acres per 

 horse before and after the purchase of tractors on these farms were 

 practically the same as on the farms which were changed in size, and 

 on account of this fact it seems fair to assume that the men who 

 changed the size of their farms would have been keeping 2.2 more 

 head of workstock if they had not owned tractors. The average 

 value per head of the workstock on the farms was $144, and while 

 the value of the workstock which was disposed of was not obtained 

 in detail, an investigation made in the Corn Belt in 1918 (see Farmers' 

 Bulletin 1093) showed that after the purchase of tractors "it was 

 not the poorest horses which were sold but those of about average 

 quality." 



