Beans In Colorado 
19 
pintos is usually not over one cent. This spread will be more than 
obliterated by the increased cost of preparing- navies for market. Be¬ 
sides, there will be a very much lower rejection in grading and clean¬ 
ing from pintos than from navies, so that a greater proportion of the 
crop will actually reach the market. 
Market grades have been established for the pinto beans. These 
grades have been adopted by the bean buyers’ associations. It is 
quite probable that the Bureau of Markets may standardize grades for 
this crop. When such is done, it will be much easier for growers to 
prepare a standard product for the market. A standard product can 
be marketed to a better advantage than an unstandardized product, 
because very much less inspection is required to determine the quality 
of the product offered, where beans are so standardized and graded as 
to permit them to be sold on grade and sample without the necessity 
of sampling each individual bag. 
Communities could do much in helping out their market problen"; 
by growing uniform quality and following market demands as to 
package and cleaning. 
COST OF PRODUCING BEANS 
It is impossible to give exact figures which will really represent 
the cost of producing beans, as so many factors enter into the cost of 
production on different farms. On dry land it was found that beans 
could be raised with as little labor as corn. The average amount of 
labor, therefore, required to produce an acre, would be equivalent to 
about 15 man hours per each acre of beans per year, and about 42 
horse hours. While the number of horse and man hours necessary 
to produce an acre of beans will vary greatly with the season and type 
of soil, the amount of labor put in is fairly constant with a given set 
of conditions. The price of everything going into production, how¬ 
ever, is increasing. Feed is higher. Horse and man labor and ma¬ 
chinery are more expensive. In 1915 and 1916 the labor cost of pro¬ 
ducing a bean crop on dry land was probably between a minimum of 
$5.00 and a maximum of Sii.oo per acre. The same amount of labor 
applied in 1917 would be a minimum value of around $12.00 per acre 
and a maximum of around $25.00 per acre for dry land conditions. 
To this labor cost it is necessary to add interest and depreciation on 
machinery and equipment and interest on the land or land rentals. 
The cost of producing beans under irrigation will give a labor 
cost somewhat higher with additional expense for machinery, land 
rentals, watering expense and other incidental items. 
For the years 1914 and 1915 studies were made on the dry lands. 
These studies showed that at that time the cost of field operations 
