38 BULLETIN 1277, L T . S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
When " standard costs " are obtained by merely applying uniform 
cost rates to all farms alike, as is frequently done for horse labor 
and man labor, they do not confuse input, output, and cost rates as 
when all three vary ; but they do conceal the fact that the variations 
are due solely to input and output variations. 
There are other production standards of a simpler kind which are 
valuable, such as bushels of corn husked per man per day, acres of 
wheat harvested per outfit, average hours of horse labor per day. 
For a few purposes " standard cost rates ' 5 are also worth while. 
Discussion of these standards is omitted for lack of space. 
CHOICE OF FARM PRACTICES 
A farmer ordinarily has a considerable range of choice as to cul- 
tural methods, equipment, feeding rations, and the like. Given 
proper data as to outputs per unit of input for each of two alterna- 
tive practices, all that the farmer needs to do is to apply probable 
cost rates to the input data for each and see which turns out a 
unit of output at lowest cost at its least-cost combination. If, for 
example, he knows how much input of each of two possible balanced 
rations goes with various outputs of milk (or butterfat or both 
combined) at least-cost combination on his farm, it being assumed 
that the inputs of the other cost factors are the same, he merely has 
to apply the cost rates for the two rations to the units of input and 
locate the least-cost combination for each under the limitations pre- 
vailing upon his farm. 
The principal difficulty with this procedure is that the inputs of 
the other cost factors do not always remain the same — one ration 
may take more labor than the other, one cultural practice may take 
more man labor, horse labor, and equipment than the other. In the 
case of comparing farms with and without tractors, the whole farm 
organization must be taken into account, for the horse-labor cost 
rates charged to the enterprises using horse labor in either case are 
seriously affected thereby, and the acreage of oats and hay as feed 
crops for horses may be reduced. Most of these difficulties, however, 
can be handled in a fairly satisfactory way. 
PLANNING A FARM BUSINESS 
Considerable use has always been made of " requirements " as to 
quantities of feed necessary per head of livestock, labor hours per 
acre of various crops, and other similar data, in attempts to plan a 
well- integrated farm business. It will now be obvious that there 
can be no definite " requirement " for most of these things. What 
is needed instead are data showing how outputs change per unit of 
input, and vice versa, so that the input and output data used will 
more accurately forecast what will be the situation under the pro- 
posed plan of organization. 
Much of the planning of the farm business must be for a consid- 
erable period of time; for example, the acreage, the buildings, the 
farm layout. All that can be done for such features of the plan is 
to guess at probable cost rates, yields, and prices and figure on the 
basis of these. 
