18 BULLETIN 560, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
On six farms where the horses worked from about 800 to 1,300 
hours per year, the average feed cost per hour was less than 5 cents. 
This low feed cost per hour was largely due to the judicious use of the 
cheaper grades of feed and pasture on the farm when the horses did 
light work or were idle, and to the high number of hours worked per 
day during the busy crop season when the horses were fed greater 
quantities and higher-priced feeds. These differences in the feed 
cost per hour indicate clearly that on many farms the importance 
of light and heavy feeding and the use of the cheaper feeds, according 
to the amount of work required, is not fully realized. 
Figure 2 further shows that on anaverage on the farms studied there 
was a fairly uniform difference between the average feed cost and the 
total cost per hour of horse labor, showing that the number of hours 
worked and the feed cost per horse are the controlling factors in 
the total cost per hour of horse labor. 
ac 
2 
oO 
<= 
c 
Tie 
a 
= 
o 
° 
1) 
1100 1200 1300 
TOTAL HOURS 
wees FEED COST — awcoue TOTAL COST 
X TEED COST ON INDIVIDUAL FARMS 
Fic. 2. Relation of total hours worked to feed est and to total cost per hour of horse labor, for all 
arms. 
COST OF HORSE LABOR PER HOUR. 
The cost of horse labor per hour depends on the net cost yearly to 
keep a horse, and the total amount of work done. (See Table 13.) 
TABLE 13.—Cost of horse labor per hour (27 farms, 316 horses). 
Average hours worked. 
Average | Average 
net cost | cost per 
per hour 
horse. | worked. 
State. l 
Per yal 2Per Er 
year. jweekday.) Sunday. 
| | 
Cents. 
WWintois (158 Horses). 2-2 2-0= 2-2 be, A ans 3.30 0.40 $100. 65 9.56 
RIONT2 BOTSCS) Pe tees cents tote ee eee eee 866 2.70 -46 120. 37 13. 90 
3.24 -13| 145.02 14. 22 
WV EWiY OL COOMOFSCS) Shc wewne ace ocd ete e eee | 1,020 
From the averages shown in Table 13 it will be seen that in all 
cases under consideration the average cost of horse labor is over 94 
cents (on the New York farms over 14 cents), while in no instance 
