UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1181 
Washington, D. C. 
March 15, 1924 
LABOR REQUIREMENTS OF ARKANSAS CROPS, 
By A. D. McNaib, Farm Management Specialist, 
Bureau of Agricultural Economics. 1 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
How these data may be used 
Scope of study .*...-: 
Method of gathering data 
Construction of charts 
Labor requirements of specified crops 
Interpretation of the tables and charts 
Page. 
Calculation of approximate cost of production . 54 
Improvement of crop systems 57 
How to calculate crop systems from the labor 
standpoint ". 57 
Labor data condensed 60 
A farmer knows, in a rough-and-ready way, the labor require- 
ments of the crops he has grown. He knows that cotton requires 
more labor than corn and that there is a busy season for cotton in 
the spring and early summer, an idle period in August, and another 
busy season in the fall in harvesting the crop. This knowledge about 
crops, like his knowledge of the seasons and rainfall, is of utmost 
importance in managing the farm, but unless this knowledge is 
translated into figures and charts it can not be used by others who may 
be interested in these problems. 
The purpose of this study is to put that knowledge in tangible 
form for all the crops grown in Arkansas. The figures, however, 
must be interpreted with reason and judgment, as they can not, in 
the nature of the case, be anything more than fair averages for a 
series of years. These labor data are subject to modifications due to 
weather, character of soil, relative weediness of land, presence of 
stumps and stones, length of rows, and other factors which will be 
discussed later. 
This bulletin presents, both in chart and in tabular form, the 
quantity of man and horse labor expended on each of the important 
1 In cooperation with the Arkansas College of Agriculture 
53503°— 23— Bull. 1181 1 
