12 
BULLETIN 528, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Table III. — Crews and duty of machinery in plowing and preparation of soil (average of 
165 farms). 
Operation. 
Crew. 
Men. 
Horses. 
Acres 
covered in 
10-hour 
day. 
Days per acre. 
10-hour day. 
Man. Horse. 
9-hour day. 
Man. Horse. 
Manuring,* 12 loads, 14.4 tons. . , 
Manuring,* 14 loads, 16.8 tons. . . 
Manuring,2 14 loads, 16.8 tons. . . 
Plowing, 14-inch walking plow. 
Plowing, 2-gang plow, 24 inch.. 
Rolling^ 9-foot to 12-foot width . 
Disk harrowing (single) 
Disk lapping half (single) 
Disk harrowing (double) 
Spring-tooth harrowing 
Spike-tooth harrowing 
Soike-tooth harrowing 
Distributing lime * (machine)... 
Hauling lime to spreader 
Drilling fertilizer 
1.44 
1.68 
1.68 
1.80 
3.60 
15.00 
9.10 
4.50 
9.50 
10.00 
12.00 
13.50 
10.50 
12 loads. 
8.00 
0.7 
1.19 
1.79 
.55 
.28 
.07 
.11 
.22 
.11 
.10 
.08 
.07 
.09 
.09 
.12 
1.40 
1.19 
1.19 
1.10 
1.11 
.14 
.22 
.44 
.44 
.20 
.16 
.22 
.18 
.18 
.24 
0.77 
1.50 
2.25 
.62 
.28 
.07 
.12 
.25 
.12 
.11 
.11 
.11 
.14 
1.54 
1.50 
1.50 
1.24 
1.11 
.14 
.24 
.50 
.48 
.22 
.18 
.24 
.22 
.22 
.28 
i With manure spreader, 10 tons per acre. 
2 Spread by hand. 
3 A plank drag is often used instead of a roller with the same duty per acre. 
* On the basis of 1§ tons per acre. 
Table III gives crews and duty of machinery as the average on 165 
farms for plowing and preparation of seed bed for the principal crops 
of the region. By duty of machinery is meant the amount of work 
accomplished in a day. For example, one man with a 14-inch plow 
and two horses will plow on an average 1.8 acres of land. Dividing 
1, or the number of men, by 1.8, the result will be 0.55, which means 
that it takes 0.55 of a 10-hour day, or 5.5 hours, for one man with a 
team to plow an acre. In the same way, dividing 2, or the number 
of horses, by 1.8, or the acreage plowed in one day, the result is 1.1, 
which means that it requires 1.1 days, or 11 horse-hours, to plow an 
acre. This is expressed in horse-days, or a fraction of a horse-day, 
rather than team-days, in order to have the figures on a uniform 
basis, as a crew may be made up of two or more horses. In the same 
manner, the day's labor per acre is given for the average length of day 
devoted to field work in that region, which is 9 hours per day, except 
in July during harvest, when full time is made. 
In hauling manure with a crew of one man and two horses, or two 
men and two horses, a manure spreader was used. The second man 
in this case helped load and did not make full time, but the day was 
so broken that very little other work could be accomplished. In the 
case of a crew of three men with two horses, two wagons were used, 
one man loading and two men spreading by hand. 
The figures for plowing include both sod and stubble, hence for 
sod the acreage plowed will be a little less and for stubble land 
slightly greater than the average. Very inconclusive data were 
obtained on the working of the 2-gang plow, as only a few are in 
