16 BULLETIN 931, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
Fifty-six per cent of these men gave the saving of time as the 
reason for using trucks for this hauling. The average length of 
haul with trucks on the farm was about 235 rods. A truck will save 
some time over horses on hauls of this length if there is no difficulty 
in obtaining traction in the fields. It may also save time to use a 
truck if only one or two loads are to be hauled and the horses and 
wagons are not ready for use. 
Twenty-eight per cent use trucks for some hauling on the farm, 
because they have found their trucks more convenient than horses. 
When frequent stops must be made, or when the truck or wagon 
must be left without attention for a considerable length of time, 
the truck may be preferable, even though the horses are allowed 
to remain idle, and the use of the truck does not save any time. 
The men whose trucks are equipped with pneumatic tires evidently 
use them to a somewhat greater extent for hauling on the farm than 
do the men whose trucks are equipped with solid tires. For instance, 
252 owners of 1-ton trucks reported concerning the use of their 
trucks in hauling on the farm. Forty-eight of them have solid- 
tired trucks, and only 20 of these 48 used their trucks for any haul- 
ing on the farm. One hundred and sixty-nine have trucks with 
pneumatic tires in front and solids in the rear, and only 71 used 
their trucks for any hauling on the farm. The remaining 35 have 
pneumatic-tired trucks and 20 used them for some hauling on the 
farm. Thus only a little over 40 per cent of the 1-ton trucks 
equipped with solid tires and of those equipped with pneumatics in 
front and solids in rear were used for work on the farm, while better 
than 55 per cent of those equipped with pneumatic tires were used 
for such work. 
CUSTOM HAULING. 
Although all of these men use their trucks primarily for hauling to 
and from their own farms, about 40 per cent of them did some custom 
work during the year preceding the time of reporting. Of 504 who 
reported on this item, 295 stated that they had done no custom work. 
One hundred and eighty-nine of the remaining 209 received on the 
average $132 for such work during the year. The number who re- 
ported hauling different materials and the price per ton-mile are 
given in Table XIII. It is seen that most of this hauling was either 
crops or live stock. On the average the men who hauled crops hauled 
35 tons a distance of 9J miles during the year, and the men who 
hauled live stock hauled 12 tons a distance of 18-J miles. 
About 35 per cent stated that the custom work which they did had 
not been profitable. It was often stated that the principal reason for 
doing custom work was to accommodate the neighbors, and in many 
such cases the price was too low to make the work profitable. 
