COST AND UTILIZATION OF POWER ON FARMS. 5 
the greatest amount of horse labor in the shortest time on most of 
these farms. However, on only 105 of the 286 farms were all the 
workstock used for cultivation, and on only 38 of the remainder 
were they all used for any other one operation. On just half of the 
farms the workstock were not all used for any one operation. 
Individual farms varied greatly in the cost of power furnished by 
both horses and tractors; and by more careful management many 
farmers could doubtless reduce this cost. Repair costs and fuel 
consumption of the tractors in many cases could have been reduced 
by more careful operation. The cost of keeping workstock could 
have been reduced on many farms by more careful feeding practices. 
The facts that on 20 of the farms the workstock did less than 40 days 
of work per head during the year and that on half of the farms they 
were not all used for any single operation indicate that the greatest 
possible use was not being made of the available power represented 
by the horses. Either more work could have been accomplished by 
more efficient use of the horses on hand, or the number of horses kept 
could have been reduced and the cost of the operation of the farm 
correspondingly decreased. 
The average annual cost of power for the drawbar work on the 
home farm which was done with tractors was equal to the cost of 
keeping 2.1 head of workstock, and this is practically the average 
number displaced per farm. On the basis of present prices, how- 
ever, the cost of keeping workstock has declined considerably more 
than the cost of operating tractors. 
Since, during the year covered by the investigation, the cost of 
power on the average farm was no greater than if it had all been fur- 
nished by horses, any saving in man-labor costs, any gain due to 
getting a larger amount of work done in a given time, and possibly 
other advantages connected with the use of tractors which can not 
be measured directly in dollars and cents, might be considered clear 
profit. On many of the farms, however, where there was no change in 
acreage, and where no workstock was displaced it is doubtful if such 
gains were great enough to balance the cost of operating the tractors. 
AREAS IN WHICH INVESTIGATION WAS MADE. 
Table 1 shows the counties visited in each State, the number of 
farmers from whom records were obtained, and the average size of 
their farms. The location of the counties is shown in figure 1. 
In each area the average size of the farms where tractors are 
owned is considerably greater than the average size of all farms, and 
this fact must be borne in mind in interpreting any of the data con- 
tained in this bulletin. The proportions of the entire acreage de- 
voted to different crops, the practices followed in preparing the 
ground, planting, cultivating, and harvesting the crops on the farms 
