The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1914-04-03
Emerson brancn. N.u. mAorERTON. MGR.

tract will not ask you in addition to feed
mis- family of five persons, and he will
not ask you to pay any additional sum
for interest on his investment in horses
and machinery. He gets that all in his
wages, and he gets fair wages at these
! figures
To this amount add the cost of seed.
twine, threshing and marketing and you
will have the total cost of raising the
acre of wheat. considering only the labor
AMI immediate money cost, which will
vary according to amount of work done,
price of seed etc. so that the total
may b. anywhere from 81. to SO. Thus
far the amounts are we'll fixed and will
vary but little year by year. Probably
So. is fair average.
| That is, the cost of raising wheat for
labor by the acre is practically certain,
but when we ask what that means per
bnshe we get into the realms of guess
work,-because we do not know how
much wheat the acre will yield. While
the general average of the state is about
twelve bushels per acre, we do not think
that fair calculation for the purpose
here. We are sure that the average
'good' farmer gets more than that, and
that the farmer who gets less year after
year, better get into some other busi-
ness for he has proven failure as a
farmer.
But let us see how the twelve bushels
to the acre man comes out. He sells
say at so cents that means he gets $3.50
for his acre. That is he has received
good wages for his work and SLIGO over.
That SLIGO is interest on his invest
ment in the land. That's what it is and
nothing else. Not on horses or machin-
cry as we have already shown. At that
rate of profit at ten per cent his land is
worth to him just SIG. an acre and if he
is farming land that is actually worth
S32. an acre then he is getting only five
per cent on his investment.
Of course if he gets twenty bushels to
the acre the profit on the investment
means land very mnch more valuable.
At So. "protit" at ten per cent it means
$50. an acre land.
But in all this there are hundred
other items that come into force as
factors to whether the farm as a whole
pays. 1t is quite possible for the man
who raises 20 bushels to the acre to 90
behind on the whole farm. We have
been speaking of one acre in this cal
cuiation, it is evident that no man could
farm one acre with profit if he had to
provide the necessary horses and mach
inery himself. 1t is equally evident that
man could not farm five hundred acres
with profit with only the machinery and
horses necessary for one hundred acres
or vice versa.
Another fact to be taken into consider
alton in the general profit question is
that the farmer must lay idle for several
months in the year-but against this is
the other fact that in farming wheat one
does not spend all his time from blowing
to threshing working at the wheat, but
both facts argue that he should provide
something else to do at these times.
The cost of raising bushel of wheat
is but one factor in farm profits; un-
doubtedly it is large factor, but the
other things have as much to do with
general success as the wheat.
One farmer right across the road from
another will get rich, while the other
gets poor. In that case 1t is not the cost
of raising wheat that makes the differ.
ence, it is the man.