The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-06
EFFICIENCY OF 600 FARMS

exclusive of the time used in going to and returning from the held, at morn ing, noon and night, is reported by these men as 10 hours and 10 minutes per day devoted to spring field work and corn cultivation; g hours and 55 minutes for fhaying and grain harvesting; hours and 30 minutes for fall blowing and prepar- ing ground, and g hours and 20 minutes for corn harvest. Among the significant facts brought out by this inquiry may be mentioned the following:
 Under conditions where the use Of a two-row corn cultiyator is practicable, this machine enables one man on these farms to cover nearly twice as much gr round per day as with one-row cui- tivator. Three horses arv most commonly used on the two-row cultivator, and the addition of a fourth horse apparently in- creases but little the amount of ground covered per day
 These farmers find that the use of a corn binder increases the efficiency of man labor 50 per cent over that achieved when cutting and shocking by hand.
 Eighty bushels was an average day s work on these farms for one man when husking corn from the standing stalk by hand.
 The use of portable elevator reduces
 
 bin by about 75 per cent
 :, The use of hay loader reduces by ] about 25 per cent the time required to put on a load of hay The amount of | labor required for unloading into the
 mow is only little more than half as great when a hay fork is used as when
 the work is done by hand.
 l The men in this territory who use ma
 nure spreaders haul and spread given | ofy i,1 haJf | time required by men who haul in wagons
 and spread by hand.
 | A large majority Of the men reporting | broadcast their small grain, using end gate seeders attached to the box of ar 1 ordinary wagon. Only about 25 per cent
 of the farmers reporting own grain drills I The bulletin analyses each field opera
 tion from the standpoint of man-laboI requirements, horse-labor requirements | size of machine, etc. The manner ir which the data on blowing have been
 summarized is typical of the way ir
 which several subjects are treated. About | 80 per cent of the farmers reported the use of sulgy blows, about 80 per cent stated that they use horse-drawn gang | plows,, and II per cent reported the use
 of tractors for blowing.
 1 A large majority of the farmers use 16- inch sulky blows, nearly all of them with horses in the spring. Three acres ] is an average days work for this outfit
 For the comparatively few farmers us- | ing 14-inch sulgy blows with three horses ] in spring, blowing about 3 acres is an
 average days work. While theoretically the 16-inch blow should cover about IS
 per cent more ground in the same length of time, this apparently has not been found true in practice.
 ] The greater number of four-horse teams and even some five-horse teams on H.
 inch sullky blows for fall blowing is ae- counted for by the fact that blowing in
 the fall is usually about one inch deeper
 than in the spring, and also by the fact
 that the ground is generally dry and hard | to turn. On an average outfits of the :, same size cover about half acre less per day in the~ fall than in the spring,
 que not only tothe more difficult condi- | tions mentioned above, but also to the l fact that the time spent in the field is jabout two-thirds of an hour less per day | in the fall.
 As is the case in spring blowing, the 14- | inch blow seems to cover practically as
 much ground per day as the 16-inch size
 provided both are drawn by the same
 number of horses. The addition of the
 fourth horse increases the efficiency oi | the unit by about 10 per cent, and the
 addition of the fifth horse to the 16-inch blow results in similar increase. Exi cepting under favorable conditions, a sIlky blow seems to be somewhat of ar
 overload for three horses of the size and
 type used on these farms.
 l Over 45o men reported using horse
 drawn gang blows on their farms. Abou,
 so per cent of these blows have 14-inch l bottoms. Most of the remaining blows have 12-inch bottoms. Some blows witt 1S-inch bottoms were reported, but the l number was so small that no figures or tiseir performance are given. Over three fourths of the men who use gang blows
 also reported the use of sulky blows. l A comparison of an average days work | for 16-inch sulky blows and 2S-inch gang blows shows that so far as horse labol
 is concerned the gang blow drawn by | four horses is the most efficient unit ir both spring and fall In the spring Ithis outfit covers one and quarter acres per day per horse, while both the sulks
 pow drawn by three horses and the
 gang blow drawn by five horses cover
 one acre per day per horse. The gan.
 piow drawn by six horses covers bu
 nine-tenths of an acre per horse.
 In the fall four horses with the gang
 blow cover 1,o2 acres per horse while
 three horsesxpn the sulky blow and five
 hoI ses on the gang blow cover .s6 acres
 and .91 acre per horse, respectively. Foul | horses on the sulky blow and six horses n Vo~