COST AISTD UTILIZATION OF POWER ON" FARMS. 



61 



Table 49. — Daily duty of one man with horses at operations on which tractors were also 



used. 



[Acres per day.] 



Operation . 



Madison 



Seneca 



Madison 



Mont- 



Living- 



Knox 



Co., 



Co., 



Co., 



Co., 



Indiana. 



ston Co., 



Co., 



Ohio. 



Ohio. 



Indiana. 



Illinois. 



Illinois. 



2. 18 



2.22 



2.21 



2.61 



3.88 



3.94 



1.88 



2.33 



1.92 



2.85 



3.60 



3.11 



12. 46 



9.83 



10.33 



14.30 



18.95 



18.80 



16.80 



16.00 



15.21 



19.93 



38.09 



33.10 



14.05 



13.36 



13.27 



15.88 



17.64 



17.61 



All. 



Spring plowing 

 Fall plowing... 



Disking 



Harrowing, etc 

 Cutting grain . . 



2.68 

 2.65 

 16.67 

 26.28 

 15.55 



The greater amount of work accomplished per man when plowing 

 and fitting ground in the two Illinois areas was due to the use of 

 larger teams and implements. A team of four horses is the common 

 unit on the farms in these areas, while in Ohio and Indiana teams of 

 three, and sometimes only two, horses are used with proportionally 

 smaller implements. With the rate of doing work when using horses 

 the same as given in the table the drawbar work which the average 

 2-plow tractor did in 25.8 days and that which the average 3-plow 

 tractor did in 20.2 days would have required 50 to 55 days for one 

 man with horses. Thus the 2-plow machines saved on the average 

 25 to 30 days of man labor during the year, and the 3-plow machines 

 30 to 35 days. 



Since disks and harrows or other light implements were never used 

 in combination when horses furnished the power, the operation of 

 " disking in combination" as done with tractors is practically equiva- 

 lent to the two separate operations of disking and harrowing or rolling 

 as done with horses. In " Loading hay" and ''Other work" done 

 with the tractors as shown in Table 12, it is not possible to make a 

 direct comparison of the man-labor requirements, but on the average 

 the tractors probably saved not far from one day for each day of 

 use. (See page — .) 



One man always operated both tractor and implement in plowing 

 and other work of fitting ground. One man usually operated both 

 tractor and binder in cutting grain, but on some farms a second man 

 was used on the binder. 



The tractors did 85 per cent of the plowing on these farms and much 

 of that done with horses was finishing up or plowing small and 

 irregular fields. For such work 2-horse or 3-horse teams were generally 

 used. If these tractor owners had done all their plowing with horses 

 some of them probably would have used larger units, and the saving 

 of man labor effected by the tractor would not have been as great as 

 that indicated above. 



