& 
24 BULLETIN 1447, U. S, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
stock on these tractor farms, as well as on those in a number of 
other regions, should be greater than on nontractor farms, even 
where the number of hours of horse work per head was smaller on 
the tractor farms. 
In the case of Sherman County farms on which tractors were 
owned, the quantities of grain fed, the hours of human labor spent 
in the care of work stock, and the charges for most other items 
were somewhat greater than on nontractor farms. On nontractor 
farms a surplus of work stock was kept for harvest work with the 
combine which were of a lower grade than the smaller number kept 
on tractor farms. These horses on nontractor farms were fed gen- 
erous quantities of wheat hay, especially during the harvest season, 
and lesser quantities of threshed grain and mixed feed than those on 
tractor farms. | 
As a general rule it may be stated that, after the purchase of a 
tractor, the number of horses that must be kept on the farm is meas- 
ured by the amount of work that occurs at rush periods which can 
be done better and more economically with horses than with tractors. 
There are cases, however, where it is preferable to hire some horses 
to perform the necessary horse work rather than carry through the 
year extra horses which are needed for relatively short periods of 
time when the peak loads of work occur. It is not always possible 
to hire extra horses when needed; but during the period of this 
survey many of these men could and did hire extra horses to provide 
sufficient horse power at rush periods. Of 31 tractor owners (Table 
5), 13 hired horses which amounted to an average of 55.7 horse days 
per farm. 
TABLE 22.—Size of farm, cost of man labor, cost of keeping work stock, cost of 
using tractor, and total cost of man labor and motive power. Tractor 
farms, 1920-19227 
3-year 
Item 1920 1921 1922 average 
IM ATINS  sey ee ese a a ate ea Ae Ape ak, ete number__ 23 27 20: see eee 
DIZEKO lab Ss oe ee eee ae Pe NN eRe es acres __ 5 1, 105 1, 296 1, 183 
AUllable area perifarm stat Meee ee We Oe eee eee aes OBE! 9 882 998 9 
(CX: Rete Un eR mae . Meas et See! Reps Si eee eye Goquaas 406 385 468 416 
Othercropsse= eee ee ee SS dos 32 +4] 58 43 
Summertallow! 220s ey ee ee prea tare dor 471 456 472 465 
Months of hired labor per farm________-___-_-_-_-_--- number__ 13. 2 16.1 14.2 14.6 
Months of fanily, labor per farm 22s 2 eee dos 2e3 9 3.2 2 
Cost of man labor per farm excluding operator________- dollars __ 2, 887 2, 048 1, 903 2, 282 
Cost of man labor per farm including operator_______---_- dos 4,109 3, 208 2, 733 3, 368 
Tillable acres per man including operator____________- number__ 397 365 407 388 
Wiorkistock: per farm: seas ee se ease Ta Sau are Same dog=a 13.2 TAS Gola) pel One 14. 6 
Maluezof work Stock per. farm 22.22 _ 222222282 ses ee et dollars __ 1, 736 1, 756 1, 596 1, 704 
Nalueofworksstock pershead= see eee ees OO) 35s 132 120 98 117 
Cost of keeping work stock per farm-____________-_--_----- dow 1, 543 | 1, 361 1, 373 1, 424 
Grain fed per head of work stock___.______.-_--------- pounds__ 971 871 771 869 
Hay and roughage fed per head of work stock________-__- dos 8, 624 8, 979 8, 108 8, 597 
Cost per head of keeping work stock_._._______-_------- dollars__| - 117 93 85 97 
Horse work per head of work stock___________-__-_-------- hours__ 632 731 564 649 
@ost-per hour of horse works 225 =) eS a ee cents__ 19 13 15 15 
Tillable acres per head of work stock..____----------- number__ 69 60 62 63 
Cosonusing tracton pentalin: —s6.. =a wee ees ees dollars __ 1, 914 1, 528 1, 665 1, 694 - 
Total cost of motive power per farm__.__-__-_----------- dos 3, 457 2, 889 3, 038 3, 118 
Total cost of motive power per tillable acre-_--_-_---_------ Goes 3. 80 3. 28 3. 04 3. 38 
Total cost of man labor and motive power per farm_----- doze. 7, 566 6, 097 ri 6, 486 
Total cost of man labor and motive power per tillable acre_do___-| . 8.32 6.91 5. 78 7. 02 
1 Certain farms have been omitted from this table for various reasons, such as, data incomplete with 
respect to months of man labor hired, an excessive amount of contract horse or tractor work, and other 
irregularities making them incomparable with the farms included in Tables 23 and 24, 
