20 



BULLETIN 500, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



the conditions which make the use of this tool desirable here, two 

 horses are commonly used. Indeed, the two-horse team is most 

 commonly used in all operations. More than two horses are rarely 

 used and only a few men, owners of small orchards, use one horse. 



In order to show the normals of these different operations as arrived 

 at by the estimates of all growers who practiced them, Table XI has 

 been prepared merely to show normal time required. It should be 

 understood in this connection that these normal times and costs do 

 not refer to the actual costs per record, but refer only to the actual 

 average cost of one operation on 1 acre with a given cultivating tool. 

 In arriving at actual costs chargeable, take Mesa County, where 39 

 per cent of the growers of the county practice disking before the first 

 irrigation, and they go over the ground an average of 1.8 times; then 

 to find the cost per record, using an acre as the unit for the county, 

 take the normal time for that given operation, multiply it by the aver- 

 age number of times over, and then by the per cent of growers in the 

 county practicing the operations, as 2.28 (normal man-hours per 

 acre) X 1.8 (number of operations) X 0.39 (per cent of men who prac- 

 tice it) —number of man-hours chargeable. 



Number of man-hours X man-hour rate = cost of man-labor. 

 Number of horse-hours X horse-hour rate = cost of horse-labor. 



Normals in this table are given only for one-man two-horse crews, as 

 the few other combinations found are not numerous enough to give a 

 normal. Cultivating times vary somewhat, according to conditions 

 of the soil .and the season, so that in some instances more than one 

 estimate covering cultivations between different irrigations have been 

 used in figuring the normal. This accounts for the number of esti- 

 mates being larger in some cases than the number of records. 



Table XL— Normal time in cultivation {1-man, 2-horse). 



Operation. 



Plow 



Disk 



Spring-tooth 



Spike-tooth 



Cultivate 



Crease 



Shovel plow (1 man, 2-horse) 

 Float 



Mesa. 



Num- 

 ber 

 esti- 

 mates. 



43 

 22 

 18 

 40 

 70 

 105 

 16 

 43 



Man- 

 hours 

 per 

 acre. 



2.28 

 1.37 

 1.18 

 1.70 

 1.12 

 2.06 

 1.33 



Acres 

 per 

 day. 



1.46 

 4.39 

 7.30 

 8.47 

 5.88 

 8.93 

 4.85 

 7.50 



Cost 

 per 

 acre. 



$3.77 

 1.25 

 .75 

 .65 

 .94 

 .62 

 1.13 

 .73 



Delta. 



Num- 

 ber 

 esti- 

 mates. 



45 

 22 

 27 

 109 

 10 

 21 



Man- 



. hours 



per 



acre. 



7.25 

 1.88 

 1.63 

 1.28 

 1.69 

 1.17 

 1.92 

 1.44 



Acres 

 per 



day. 



1.38 

 5.32 

 6.13 

 7.81 

 5.92 

 8.54 

 5.21 

 6.94 



Cost 

 per 



acre. 



S3. 99 



1.03 



.90 



.70 



1.06 

 .79 





