38 
BULLETIN" 997. U. 
DEPAETMEXT OF AGRICULTURE. 
On most of the farms the cultivation of corn required more horse 
labor than any other single operation in the limited amount of time 
available for the work. Of the 143 men who used all of their work- 
stock for some one operation 73 per cent used them for the cultiva- 
tion of corn. 
Two men cultivated their corn entirely with their tractors, 14 
used their tractors for part of the work, and 270 used horse-drawn 
cultivators only. The acreage in corn on these 270 farms and the 
number of horses used on each for cultivating were as shown in 
Table 27. 
Table 2,. — Number of horses used for cultivating com on farms of different sizes using 
horse-drawn cultivators only. 
Acres in corn. 
o 
zi 
z 
'-"- i 
— Y- 
~ 3 
E N 
— S. 
= 
— Y- 
5 
— m 
~- i 
-1 
c 
■j- c 
y. 
- Z 
E t ^ 
a 
— Y- 
~ O 
'£- — 
= X 
(j 
ea 
I' 
ii 
— — 
- o 
= v: 
^ O 
Less than 35 
20 
17 
i 
ii 
2 
2 
IS 
32 
21 
14 
..... 
8 
1 
1 
1 
2 
8 
12 
16 
16 
13 
4 
35 to .54 
42 
55 to 74 
51 
1 
~2 
- 1 
3 
3 
75 to 94 
49 
1 
4 
2 
5 
3 
95 to 114 
43 
115 to 134 
20 
135 to 154 
24 
1 
3 
...... 
...... 
1 
155 or more 
... 21 
4 
Apparently some of these men used more horses than necessary for 
then 1 corn cultivation. Two horses should be ample for cultivating 
35 acres or less, but three men used more than two horses. Three or 
four horses, drawing one 2-row or two 1-row cultivators, should be 
sufficient for 35 to 54 acres of corn, and a majority of the men with 
55 to 74 acres used only 4 horses for cultivating, yet 23 of the 93 
men with 35 to 74 acres in corn used more than 4 horses for cultivat- 
ing. Similarly, the cultivating could evidently have been done with 
fewer horses on some of the farms with greater acreages in corn. 
If 2-row cultivators had been used exclusively on the farms where 
two 1-row outfits were used, only three horses and one man would 
have been required for the work. A more extended use of 2-row 
machines on the farms with larger acreages in corn would have often 
made it possible to do the cultivating with fewer horses, and fewer 
men as well. 
On some of these farms more horses were needed for some other 
operation than for corn-cultivating. If machines and men are 
available for cultivation on such farms, it might be profitable to use 
the horses which would otherwise be idle. This practice is responsible 
for the large number of horses used for cultivating on some of the 
farm-. 
