UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
SW^mTL 
I BULLETIN No. 814 
Office of the Secretary 
Contribution from the Office of Farm Management 
H. C. TAYLOR, Chief 
jrw^^-rt* 
Washington, D. C. 
April 24, 1920 
THE STANDARD DAY'S WORK IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 
Performance of Implements and Crews as Indicated by Reports from 600 
Farmers in a Typical Corn-Belt Area. 
By H. R. Tolley, Scientific Assistant; L. M. Church, Assistant in Farm Accounting. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Introduction 1 
Summary of results 2 
General conditions 3 
riowing 4 
The disk harrow 9 
The spike-tooth harrow 10 
Planting corn .. 11 
Cultivating corn 12 
Cutting corn 14 
Page. 
Husking corn 17 
Seeding grain 19 
Harvesting grain 21 
Unloading grain 23 
Haying operations 23 
Hauling and spreading manure 29 
Comparison of Illinois and New York 
practices 30 
INTRODUCTION. 
Data regarding the amount of work that farm implements, teams, 
and crews may reasonably be expected to do are of value — 
1. In determining the equipment that should be used on farms of 
various types and sizes. 
2. As a guide to the farmer who plans to locate where farming 
conditions are unfamiliar. 
3. As a guide to the farmer who plans to change the size of his 
farm or his type of farming. 
4. As offering the investigator more or less assistance in deter- 
mining the amount and value of work necessary in the production 
of crops. 
During the winter of 1918 and 1919 reports were obtained from 
nearly 600 farmers in McLean County, 111., concerning the rate of 
doing work with the farm implements, teams, and crews in use there. 
Each of these farmers gave his estimate of an average day's work 
on his place for each of the field operations, and the average time 
inquired for the operations not directly measurable in terms of a 
day's work. The results of this inquiry are set forth in the following 
pages. 
It will be understood that the averages here presented are to be 
considered as representing, in each instance, but one factor of sev- 
138712°— Bull. 814—20 1 1 
