2 BULLETIN 961, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
aid in planning the year's work, especially in determining how large 
an acreage can be handled by a given crew at the busiest season of 
the year, or how much extra help will be needed at a given time. It 
is understood, of course, that no plans or work schedules which may 
be worked out from this information can be followed blindly without 
reference to variations in weather and other conditions. 
SCOPE AND METHOD OF STUDY. 
The data for this bulletin were obtained by personally interviewing 
several hundred farmers in the hill section of Louisiana. From these 
men there were obtained 677 detailed reports on the principal crops 
grown. These reports cover all the operations performed on each 
crop, the size of crew, the implements used, and the farmer's estimate 
of the acreage. 
The area in which the data were collected is the northwest quarter 
of the State of Louisiana. The climate is warm and even, the grow- 
ing season extending from about March 1 to November 5, or usually 
about 250 days. The rainfall averages about 45 inches, and is well 
distributed throughout the growing season. The fall months are 
usually the driest of the year. This part of the State is rolling and 
has many streams. More than half of the area is in woodland. The 
farms on which the records were obtained average somewhat over 100 
acres, with about 85 acres of crops. Cotton is the chief money crop, 
and in many instances practically the only crop sold. 
The hill land is sandy clay loam, or sometimes gravelly loam. The 
type of soil found in the little branch bottoms which are common on 
many farms is usually silt or clay loam. 
Farms in this area are operated by the farmer and his family alone 
or with the help of a hired man or share cropper. On many farms 
negro labor is used for part of the year. In general, the upland 
farms are operated by the farm family with the help of negroes. 
SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 
To make easy any comparison between the various crops, labor 
requirements per acre are summarized in one table (Table I). Ref- 
erence to the detailed tables further on will show that the labor 
requirements as given here do not represent precisely the full time 
spent by these men on their crops, but are simply the aggregate of 
man and mule labor requirements of those standard operations which 
are performed by all of the farmers. 
The reliability of these figures depends partly upon the number 
of records considered and partly upon the uniformity or lack of 
uniformity of practices of individual farmers. Where there are a 
large number of records, lack of uniformity is neutralized. The 
number of records each on intertilled cowpeas, peanuts (first crop), 
