48 BULLETIN 917, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
use cost for machinery ($3.80 per acre for beets) was recorded. 
The use cost of machinery for grains and alfalfa was also greatest 
at Fort Morgan. This item in the other districts was fairly uniform. 
Thrashing is partly a labor and partly a machinery charge against 
a crop. The portion of the thrashing labor furnished by the farmer 
has already been considered under " Labor costs." The charge here 
is the cash paid to the thrashing crew for thrashing the grain. This 
charge probably more nearly approaches the contract-labor classi- 
fication. However, it is considered here as an individual item. 
The highest cost occurred at Greeley, where the yield was larger and 
the method of thrashing different. In this area a higher rate per 
bushel was paid, but more labor was furnished by the thrasher than 
in the other districts. 
The item of overhead, which is based on the amount of labor and 
materials, varies with these two items. This charge ranged from 
$1.08 per acre for oats at Greeley to $12 per acre for cantaloupes at 
Rocky Ford. 
The total " Other costs," with the exception of sugar beets, were 
highest at Greeley. Beans show approximately the same cost at 
Greeley and at Rocky Ford, while beets show the greatest other 
cost in the Rocky Ford district. Cantaloupes cost about the same 
as beans. Potatoes and cucumbers cost about the same as sugar 
beets for this item. 
SUMMARY AND DISTRIBUTION OF COSTS. 
When all of the cost groups are added together the sum represents 
the total cost of production. 
A higher percentage of the total cost is shown for labor on culti- 
vated crops than for the other crops with the exception of potatoes, 
the labor cost for which is 36 per cent of the total cost of production. 
Where the percentage of labor cost is low the percentage of other 
costs is high. 
Alfalfa had the lowest percentage cost for materials (5 per cent) 
and potatoes had the highest (43 per cent). 
The importance of each group as compared with the total cost of 
production is readily seen when reduced to a percentage basis. 
Table VII shows the distribution of total cost in terms of per- 
centages: 
