36 BULLETIN 748, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
due the grower when the beets are delivered. No interest is charged 
the farmer for the money invested in the seed. 
Some growers seeded their fields at a higher, some at a lower rate 
than 15 pounds to the acre, while others sowed the stipulated amount. 
Caro farmers averaged 15.38 pounds, Alma growers 15.5, Grand 
Rapids 14, while the northwestern Ohio group drilled in 15.1 
pounds of seed per acre. This variation accounts for the difference 
in the acre cost of seed. The lowest rate of seeding and the lowest 
cost were found at Grand Rapids. 
OTHER COST ITEMS. 
Other cost items include insurance and taxes, use of land, machin- 
ery, and miscellaneous expenses. These are charges against the farm 
as a unit and must be prorated so that each enterprise will bear a 
just portion of the total expense. Table X XIII gives the cost per 
acre of these different items, together with the total cost per « acre » and 
per ton. 
There was a wide variation in the acre charge for these costs. 
Northwestern Ohio had the highest cost, $18.27, while in the Ga 
district the cost was but $10.82. A elance at the table will show that 
the charge for the use of land causes most of this difference. Reduced 
to a ton basis, this variation becomes considerably less. 
TABLE XXIII.—The use of land and other cost items. 
Cost per acre. 
Num- | Total Total 
+ tne ber of acres cost 
District. : Use of : 
_farm in Insur- land and | Mach- | Miscel- per 
records.| beets. | ance and interest | inery. laneous Total. ton. 
taxes. on cash. expenses. 
CWaTonee ny Secu Nel 2 ideas eal 134 | 2,017.65 $1. 00 $6.65 | $2.07 $1. 10 $10. 82 $1. 11 
JX! LOWY Mi Sutera s spiced aaa eoesnera 53 505. 79 80 11. 69 2. 45 1. 24 16. 18 1.42 
Crenduapidssseeecs seme see 36 230. 53 . 92 8. 25 2. 45 1. 21 12. 83 1. 26 
Northwestern Ohio....-.... 97 | 1,524. 65 91 13.79 2.45 1.12 18. 27 1.39 
INSURANCE AND TAXES. 
Where the operator owned the land the insurance and taxes were 
greater than where the beets were grown by a tenant, since the man 
who rented had only his personal taxes to pay and usually carried 
no insurance. This charge is very small on tenant farms. 
On farms operated by the owner of the land the percentage of the 
total real-estate investment covering the beet land was used in deter- 
mining the proportion of the insurance and taxes chargeable against 
the beet crop. This item was about the same in Grand Rapids and 
northwestern Ohio and slightly greater at Caro. The lower charge 
of 80 cents at Alma is due to the high percentage of tenant farmers 
in this group. About 50 per cent of the growers in this area grew 
beets on rented land, while only about 10 per cent of the farmers at 
Caro and Grand apie rented the land. 
