26 BULLETIN 1296, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
the ridges were worked down and the entire 212 acres were harrowed 
twice. All of the wheat was bound, shocked, and stacked. Eighty- 
three per cent of the grain was hauled from the thresher to the bin 
and the remainder to the local elevator. Only the labor of hauling 
wheat done at threshing time is shown in the chart. 
OATS 
Oats usually follow wheat or corn. When oats follow wheat, the 
land is generally plowed in the late fall or early spring and then 
harrowed once or twice prior to seeding. Corn land that is seeded to 
oats is ordinarily disked before seeding. Very little of the corn land 
is plowed for oats. Oats are frequently seeded on land on which 
wheat had failed. This abandoned wheat land may be harrowed or 
disked before seeding to oats, but usually receives no preparation in 
addition to that made for wheat in the fall. 
Most of the oats are bound and shocked and then either threshed 
from the shock or stacked before threshing. During the four years 
of this study, 40 to 60 per cent of the oats were stacked and threshed 
from the stack. In 1921, one-fourth of the oats acreage was headed. 
The headed oats and some bundle oats are frequently fed without 
threshing. Most of the headed oats, however, were stacked and 
threshed. Practically all the oats are hauled from the thresher to 
the bin. The oats are usually fed on the farms where grown. 
LABOR REQUIREMENTS FOR OATS 
Any detailed analysis of the reasons for the quantity variations in 
the labor used for different operations in the production of oats 
would involve a repetition of the discussion of wheat, because the same 
implements and teams are used and the operations performed are 
in most cases identical or very similar. Therefore attention will be 
called only to the outstanding reasons for the variations in the total 
acre requirements for the seed-bed preparation and seeding and for 
the harvesting operations. 
REASONS FOR VARIATIONS IN LABOR REQUIREMENTS FOR SEED-BED 
PREPARATION AND SEEDING 
The hours of man labor and horse work used in the seed-bedp rep- 
aration and seeding of oats on 15 farms in 1922 are shown in Tables 
10 and 11. On the five farms using the least man labor and horse 
work per acre, a part or all of the oats was seeded on land that was 
in corn the previous year. The corn land seeded to oats was not 
plowed. On the four farms having the highest man and horse hours 
per acre, all the land was plowed and most of it harrowed twice 
before seeding. Six horses were used for plowing on farm 7. This 
farm had the highest horse work requirements. The relatively 
small acreages in oats and the fact that most of the work of seed-bed 
preparation and seeding comes in the spring when other work is 
not urgent are the reasons the acre requirements for all preparation 
operations for oats are higher than for wheat. 
