A FIVE-YEAR FARM MANAGEMENT SURVEY IN OHIO. 35 
less extra labor of this sort was hired on 24 of the farms, at a total 
cost of $489. 
The labor expense was practically the same for the first four years, 
and in 1916 it was 4 per cent above the five-year average. 
REPAIRS AND DEPRECIATION. 
Expenses for repairs and depreciation included repairs on machin- 
ery, dwellings, other buildings, and fences, and depreciation on dwell- 
ings, other buildings, and machinery. These were all considered cash 
expenses. The expenses for repairing machinery, buildings, and 
fences represented only those actually paid out, and did not include 
the value of any repairs made by the farmer himself or of any repair 
material furnished from the farm. The expense for depreciation of 
machinery and buildings was equivalent to a cash expense. While we 
do not think of money as actually paid out for depreciation, } T et it 
was paid for new machinery to replace that worn out, for replacing 
old buildings so far gone that others were built in their stead, and 
for such extensive repairs to buildings as would avoid the necessity 
of replacing them for several years. 
The annual expense for repairs and depreciation amounted to $81 
per farm, or 20 per cent of the total farm expenses. The expense for 
depreciation was about twice that of repairs. 
The annual expense of all farms for repair of machinery was $4 
per farm, or slightly over 1 per cent of the inventory value of the 
machinery ; that for depreciation was $25 per farm, or nearly 8 per 
cent of the inventory value. The total annual cost for upkeep of ma- 
chinery was $29 per farm, or 9 per cent of the inventory value. New 
machinery was bought to the amount of $37 per farm. 
For all farms the annual expense for keeping the dwelling in repair 
tvas $6 per farm and that for depreciation was $10. The total annual 
expense for repairs and depreciation of the dwellings was $16 per 
farm, or If per cent of the value of the dwellings. 
The expense for repair and depreciation of the other farm build- 
ings was greater than that for .the dwellings. The average annual 
repair expense was $7 per farm and that of depreciation was $18. 
The annual repair and depreciation expense together were $25 per 
farm, or just a little over 3 per cent of the value of the buildings. 
The expense for fence repair includes not only slight cash expenses 
for repairing fences but also the cash outlay for new fencing when it 
is to replace that worn out, The average annual expense for keeping 
fences in repair on all these farms was $11 per farm, or 7 cents per 
acre. The reason for such a low expense for fence repair in this area 
may be readily seen from figure 3 (p. 7). With so many rail fences 
most of the fencing material was furnished by the farm without cash 
outlav. 
