EFFICIENT FARMING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19717, 17 August 1927, Page 18

EFFICIENT FARMING.

MAN AND HORSE POWER. The increasing use of. machinery on the farm has substantially reduced the ratio of man power to horses on the farm •within recent years. The United States Department of Agriculture has compiled gome figures which show the relation between the use of horses in various States and countries and the income which results therefrom. For every 100 agricultural workers in Italy 19 horses are used-, bringing in an income of £9 per man. In Germany for eveiy 100 workers 53 horses are used, making ain income of nearly £24. In America 205 horses are used per 100 •workers, making an average income 'of £SB. The comparison between States in the United States is even more striking In Alabama, Indiana, lowa and Nebraska the number of horses per 100 workers is 81, 169, 386 and 471, with corresponding incomes of £22, £SO, £ll9 and £lB2.

Mr. P. H. Stewart, of the Nebraska College of Agriculture, in an article on Why Wide Variations in Corn-growing Costs ? published in the Breeders' Gazette, remarks that it has been estimated that to grow an acre of maize with a hoe ■would require 300 hours of a mart's time. tWith the help of one horse this would be reduced to 100 hours, with two horses to 40 hours, with three horses to 25 hours, and with four horses to about 10 to 15 man hours. "We have prided ourselves,"" he writes, " on the, fact that American farmers are the most efficient in the world, largely because they use horse power freely. In 1890 it required 30 man hours to grow an acre of maize: in 1920, 10 man hours; and in 1926 it required 8 hours in eastern Nebraska, Therefore, in the last 40 years the American farmer has increased his effi ciency from four to five times. In the meantime, however, industry has on the average increased the efficiency of its labourers about ten times. On this basis a - fariTier, even with his high efficiency, would have to work two hours to produce what a man in industry does in one hour. Might this, at least in part, account for the difference which exists to-day between agriculture and industry?"