GROWING SUGAR BEETS TN COLORADO. 



49 



tant crop at Fort Morgan, hence the machinery charge is somewhat 

 greater than in the other two districts, where more enterprises shared 

 this cost. 



Miscellaneous expense. — Some of the expenses of the farm, such as 

 telephone charges, office supplies, etc., are general in nature and are 

 not applicable to any special enterprise. They must therefore be 

 carried by the farm as a whole. To make provision for these items, 

 a 3 per cent charge was made on the basis of labor and material costs 

 combined. If the labor and materials amounted to $60 per acre, 

 3 per cent of this sum would be $1.80. This would be taken as a part 

 of the total cost of producing the crop. It will be seen that the over- 

 head expense for the three Colorado districts did not vary greatly. 



SUMMARY OF COSTS. 



In Table XXVII is shown a summary of costs in 1914 and 1915 for 

 the three districts. The highest cost per acre was found in the Greeley 

 district, but as this region was credited with the highest average 

 yield, these growers had the lowest cost per ton. The cost per acre 

 was $7.66 greater in the Greeley district than in the Rocky Ford 

 section, but, the Greeley farmers produced sugar beets at a cost of 

 $4.66 per ton, which was 33 cents per ton less than the cost at Rocky 

 Ford. 



Table XXVII. — Summary and distribution of costs for three Colorado districts. 



District. 



Year. 



Yield 

 per acre. 



Cost 

 per acre. 



Cost 

 per ton. 



Distribution of costs. 



Labor. 



Mate- 

 rials. 



Other 

 costs. 



Greeley 



Fort Morgan 

 Rocky Ford . 



1914-15 



1915 

 1914-15 



15.57 

 13. 65 

 12.99 



872. 53 

 65.00 

 64.87 



S4.66 

 4.76 

 4.99 



Per cent. 

 54.3 

 56.9 

 59.1 



Per cent. 



10.7 



9.5 



8.6 



Per cent. 

 35.0 

 33.6 

 32.3 



Labor costs constituted the most important part of the expense in 

 producing sugar beets. In the Rocky Ford district this amounted 

 to 59.1 per cent. Greeley growers had the lowest percentage under 

 this heading. Materials constituted from 8.6 to 10.7 per cent of 

 total cost, and other costs approximately one- third. 



LABOR REQUIREMENT. 



As already stated the labor requirement in the production of sugar 

 beets includes man, horse and contract labor. Since it is the general 

 practice to hire a part of the work done at a stipulated price per acre, 

 this contract labor is usually treated as a direct cash outlay against 

 the beet crop. This item was converted to man hours by dividing 

 the cash outlay per acre by 25, the cost per hour in cents. Table 



