farms and decide which is most satisfactorily stocked, considering the locality and markets.

PROBLEMS

1. A farmer has a four-year rotation of corn, corn, oats and clover, with 18 acres in each field. A dairy herd of 25 cows is kept which is fed the following ration: Corn silage 35 lbs., hay 10 lbs., corn 3 lbs., oats 3 lbs., and oil meal 1 lb. The corn yields 60 bushels and 2 tons of stover or 10 tons of silage, oats 50 bushels, and hay 3 tons an acre. How much feed will be consumed by the dairy herd during a feeding period of 210 days, and how much will be left for other stock, if 16 acres of corn are put in the silo?

2. How much corn must be sold at 50 cents a bushel to pay for the oil meal in the above problem if it costs $38.00 a ton? If the other stock on the farm require 600 bushels of oats, how many bushels will have to be purchased and how much corn will it take to buy them if oats are 30 cents and corn 50 cents?

3. If a man loses $1.06 on each $100.00 worth of sheep sold and gains $15.72 on each $100.00 worth of hogs sold, what will be the total loss or gain if he sells 50 sheep at $6.50 per head and 25 hogs weighing 175 pounds each at 7¢ per pound?

4. If a bushel of corn produces 10 pounds of gain when fed to hogs, what will be the minimum price at which the grower could afford to sell his hogs, allowing 1¢ a pound for labor and other feeds, if corn sells for 56¢ a bushel?

5. A colt one year old can be sold for $75.00 but is held for two more years at a cost of $80.00 per year, but $30.00 worth of labor is secured from it the last year. At what price should it sell in order to give a profit of $25.00 more than if sold as a yearling?

6. A bushel of corn is worth 69¢. If fed to hogs it will make 9 pounds of gain. Pork is worth $7.30 per cwt. Will more be made to sell the corn

or to feed it to the hogs?

7. Ear corn is worth 69¢ a bushel; barley 604; oats 37¢, and shorts $23.50 a ton. What is the cost of a pound of each? If a bushel of corn will make 9 pounds of pork, a bushel of barley 7 pounds, a bushel of oats 4 pounds and a ton of shorts 340 pounds, which is the most profitable feed to use?

8. A farmer has a herd of 20 cows. They average 5,400 pounds yearly of 3.9% milk. He can get $1.50 a hundred for whole milk, or 34¢ a pound for butterfat, and the skim milk remaining is worth $5.25 per cow for hog feed. In which way will he derive the greatest revenue?

9. Milk is worth $1.35 a hundred lbs. at a cheese factory; butter fat is worth 32¢ a pound. A farmer living 5 miles from the factory has a herd

of 18 cows. They give an average of 4800 pounds of 4.1 milk yearly. The milk must be delivered daily. The cream need be delivered three times a week during the 22 weeks in summer and twice a week during the remaining 30 weeks. The team travels 4 miles an hour in making the delivery. Horse labor is worth 10¢ an hour and man labor 16¢. Considering skim milk worth 25¢ per cwt. and the time required for separating 2 hours per day, which method of marketing the milk will give the greater profit and how much?

10. Two cows can be purchased for $140.00. They will give 175 pounds of butterfat each, which sells at 40¢ a pound. It costs for feed, labor and incidental expense, to keep each cow $60.50. Interest at 6% on the investment. What is the net profit on the investment?

11. A cow that will give 275 pounds of butterfat can be purchased for $115.00. Feed, labor, etc., cost $70.00. With interest and butterfat at the same rate, is the profit greater or less than in problem 10 and how much?

12. What quantity of butter can be made from 4260 pounds of milk testing 4.1% of butter fat?* What is the value of the butter if sold at 26¢ a pound? What would butter fat have to sell for a pound to equal the same amount?

13. What is the value of the butter fat in 8,000 pounds of 3.8% milk, if sold in the form of 30% cream at 35¢ a quart?†

*The quantity of butter that can be made from a given amount of butter fat is found by increasing the amount of the butter fat by one-fifth of its weight.

†The specific gravity of pure butter fat is .9. The trade accepts the weight of a gallon of 20% cream as 8.4 pounds and of 30% cream as 8.3 pounds. To learn the number of pounds of butter fat in the milk, multiply the weight of the milk by the per cent of fat. To learn the number of pounds of butter fat in one gallon of cream, multiply the weight of the cream by the per cent of butter fat it contains. To find the number of gallons of cream, divide the number of pounds of butter fat in the milk by the number of pounds of butter fat in one gallon of cream. To learn the value of the butter fat in the cream, multiply the number of gallons and fractions of gallons of cream by the price per gallon. See Appendix, page 219, for weight of milk.

REFERENCES

Farm Management.-G. F. Warren, pages 203-238.

Cost of Horse Labor.-T. P. Cooper, Minnesota Extension Bulletin No. 15.

Soils and Fertilizers.-H. Snyder, pages 255-272.

CHAPTER XII

FARM LABOR

106. Farm Labor Scarce. It is often difficult to employ competent and satisfactory farm help at seasons when it is most needed. The complaint is frequently heard that labor cannot be secured. This complaint only means that farmers cannot hire labor at the rate for which it could formerly be employed. The United States has experienced a season of prosperity during the two decades just passed, and the cities and towns have been growing rapidly. Industrial development in other lines has also been active. The demand for laborers in the cities and in the industries has encouraged the farmers' sons and many of the foreign immigrants to seek employment in other lines than farming. Wages in the cities have been higher than in the country and the social privileges usually are greater also. If farmers are to successfully compete with the cities for farm labor, they must not only pay wages including board and lodging which will equal the wages offered in other lines, but they must organize their work so that the hours can be reasonably regular. Good board and comfortable living quarters must be provided if the men are to be interested in the work and remain contented. Reading rooms, bath rooms, and time for social privileges are provided by the progressive farmers who wish to keep first-class help. While such accommodations add to the expense, they ease decidedly the problem of getting good farm help. The farmers who have comfortable buildings in which to do their work, who keep good live stock and follow good systems of farming have much less trouble in interesting their laborers in the work of the farm and in keeping them than do those who get along from day to day in a shiftless kind of way.

Some farmers

107. The Length of Work Days on the Farm. Many believe that the difficulty in employing labor on the farm is due to the unusually long hours of labor. Comparisons are made between the length of the day of the city laborer and of those employed on the farm. It is true that during certain seasons of the year, long days are required on the farm, but as a rule they are not longer than the days of the laborer in the city. Many farmers claim to work fourteen to sixteen hours per day. may work that length of time during certain seasons of the year, but carefully recorded data covering several years operations on many farms shows that while farmers may be out of bed sixteen hours a day, they actually work much less than that length of time. On groups of farms in the north where careful records have been kept for a period of years the length of working day has been found to vary from 8.7 hours to 10.9 hours on week days and from 3.1 hours to 5.7 hours of chore labor on Sundays. The longer days are required in areas where much live stock is kept and where it must be housed during the winter season. The Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture show the average length of farm work day by seasons for the United States to be 9 hours 54 minutes for spring, 10 hours 54 minutes for summer, 9 hours 52 minutes for fall, 8 hours 33 minutes for winter, with a yearly average of 9 hours 48 minutes. It is safe to assume that approximately 10 hours will cover the working day of most farmers.

*

The popular day's work in the city is eight hours. Often the city laborer will have one-half hour's walk or ride before reaching his place of labor and the same when returning. This added to the eight hours may make his day even longer than the day of the farm laborer, since the man who works on the farm is usually at his boarding place when the day's work is done.

*Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. III, No. 3, Page 146.

On account of the care of the live stock and because of the uncertainty of the weather and other crop-growing factors, it is difficult to rigidly follow a set rule in fixing the length of the day on a farm. A ten hour day, however, with the work effectively organized and executed, will usually accomplish all of the necessary tasks on most farms. There will be occasional days and even seasons when more than this amount of time must be included. At no time can the farmer or his help drop all responsibility for the care of the stock and crops and refuse to work in an emergency. Employees do not usually object to working in these emergencies, provided they are given a little time off on occasions when work is slack. Neither do they object to doing chores before breakfast and a reasonable amount of work after supper. What they do appreciate, however, is regularity and the feeling that at some certain time the day's work is done. In fixing the winter labor schedule, shorter days can be allowed than in the summer, and the greater part of the reading and recreation of the farmer and his help must come during that season.

108. Farm Income, and the Employment of Labor. On every farm there are two factors that bear upon the income derived. These are: (1) the interest earning power of the money invested; (2) the labor of the farmer himself or of that which he may employ. Certain fixed charges must be met before wages can be paid on the labor employed. On a farm where $4000 are invested in land, $1200 in buildings, and $800 in teams and equipment, with money earning 5 per cent, an interest charge of $300 must be met before the farmer can earn anything for his own labor. If the $6000 were put at interest at 5 per cent it would earn $300 without any labor being performed. In addition to the interest there will be a depreciation charge of 5 per cent on the buildings and 10 per cent on tools and teams, besides taxes, insurance, and supplies. The total fixed charge would be: