EXPERIENCE WITH MOTOR TRUCKS. 6 
The average estimated life of these trucks is 6J years, and on this 
basis depreciation is usually the largest single item of expense in con- 
nection with their operation. 
The average cost of operation, including depreciation, interest on 
investment, repairs, registration and license fees, fuel, oil, and tires, 
is 15.2 cents per mile for the one-half and three-fourths ton trucks, 
15.2 cents for the 1-ton, 21.3 cents for the 1J and l|-ton, and 25.8 
cents for the 2-ton. 
The average cost of hauling crops, including the value of the 
driver's time at 50 cents per hour, is 24.0 cents per ton-mile with the 
one-half and three-fourths ton trucks, 24.1 cents with the 1-ton, 23.3 
cents with the lj-ton and 1-J-ton, and 21.5 cents with the 2-ton trucks. 
Nearly 85 per cent of these trucks had not been out of commission 
when needed for a single day during the year covered by the reports, 
and 80 per cent of the owners stated that they had not lost any 
appreciable time on account of motor or tire trouble, breakage, or 
other mechanical difficulties when using their trucks. About one 
truck in 15 was out of commission more than five days, however, and 
one owner in 40 reported a loss of more than 5 per cent of the time 
when using his truck. 
Half of these men own tractors as well as motor trucks. Most of 
the tractors are owned on the larger farms, however. Only 33 per cent 
of the men whose farms contain 160 crop acres or less own tractors, 
while 65 per cent of those with over 320 crop acres own them. The 
number of work stock kept on the farms where both trucks and trac- 
tors are owned is only slightly less than the number kept on the 
farms of corresponding size where only trucks are owned. 
Seventy-eight per cent of these farmers state that their trucks re- 
duce the expense for hired help. On those farms where there is a 
reduction the operators estimate that it amounts to $209 per year 
on the average. 
METHOD OF STUDY. 
In February and March of 1920 a questionnaire was sent to each 
of approximately 15,000 farmer truck-owners in Illinois, Indiana, 
Iowa, eastern Kansas, southern Minnesota, Missouri, eastern Ne- 
braska, southeastern South Dakota, and southern Wisconsin. The 
questionnaire called for the type and size of farm, the use the farmer 
makes of his motor truck, the cost of operating it, his idea of its 
profitableness, the advantages and disadvantages of a truck for farm 
use, and other related information. In all about 15 per cent of the 
farmers replied to the questionnaire. However, only reports from 
grain and live-stock farmers, -who raise corn as one of the principal 
crops, were included in the study. 
All reports from men owning second-hand trucks or trucks made 
by the addition of truck units or attachments to passenger cars, those 
