Show Idle Tractor Is Poor Investment Four Hundred Hours of Work Annually Necessary to Make Expenses With certain kinds s and amounts ot of work a tractor Is Indispensable In the farm business while under other con con- conditions conditions a tractor Is a n foolish Invest Investment ment SItS says Prof Prot V II B Uart of ot Cornell university un The lar largest est single Item of tractor cast Bt st Is depreciation On New v York farms depreciation Is he a little over one one- third one third of the total cost of operation Fuel 1111 Is la the next largest Item and makes approximately another third ot of thE cost Cf t The other third Is Interest cash and labor for repairs lubrication Insurance and storage Cost Per Hour With such cuch fixed charges time the total number of ot hours bours of or work done by n a tractor makes makE's 08 a wf wide e variation in the cost an nn hour for the time work done The tractors use used hours a year cost sa 60 cents an hour while willie the tr tractors ors ct-ors used l 20 hours cost for each ench hourIn hour In the survey made on tractor costs It was was found that one sixth one of the tractor work done In time the state was custom work and that the avern average e tractor In New York works on four different farms Estimates made by farmers who kept records on both tractors and horses Indicate that the tractor saved the work of one and eight tenths eight horses and three and tenths six-tenths months of hired mired labor a year Time The tractor In Including Inv In- Including equipment cost an hour while the horses with the tools used cost 68 as cents nn an hour on the time average Il The horses cost third one-third more a year than the tractor but the hor horses es worked more hours Horses Horse Not Displaced In spite of the time popular statements that the work on many farms Is done entirely ly by tractors Professor Hart says We have found that horses ha have e enot not yet been displaced to any great extent In time the lighter and more rapid field operations such as ns cultivating and haying The greatest g field use ot of tractors now made In New r-ew York farms Is In the heavy-draft heavy operations like plowing harrowing and disking With the present high cost of man and horse labor rapid development and Improvement can be expected e Inthe In Inthe inthe the lI lighter farm tractor equipment he says pays The Time tractor has many distinct ad- ad advantages advantages ad advantages vantages if It can be used enough to tobe tobe tobe be economical and If the farm layout Is fa favorable it will work vork long hours and In hot weather and It will 11 speed speedup speedup up work worl In a critical tIme lime Some con con- conditions conditions conditions still demand horses and Pro Pro- Professor Professor fessor lessor Hart suggests that before a farmer buys a tractor he must first answer the question of whether It will pay The next question is whether or not the mone money necessary to buy and operate a tractor will pay better It if Invested elsewhere In the farm tarm busIness |