COSTS OF PRODUCING SUGAR BEETS.
Seed costs per acre for 1921 and 1923 were determined by adjusting
the 1922 seed costs per acre by the percentage of change in price of
seed for each of these years, as compared with the price of seed in
1922. In Idaho, however, the price per pound paid by farmers for
beet seed was 20 cents for each of the three years. Prices per pound
of seed were obtained from the farmers in the areas investigated and
were checked against the factory-grower contracts.
Commercial fertilizer costs for 1921 and 1923 were obtained by
adjusting the 1922 fertilizer costs per acre by the percentage of
variation in the market prices of fertilizer in those years. In Michi-
gan and Chio, the two States in which beet growers used commercial
fertilizer, the prices ® of fertilizer in 1921 and 1923 were, respectively,
15.7 per cent and 31 per cent higher than in 1922. Consequently
the factors used in multiplying to obtain the 1921 and 1923 costs
were 1.157 and 1.31, respectively.
In like manner land charges for 1921 and 1923 were determined
by applying to the 1922 land charges a factor of change based upon
the percentage change in the “value of good plow lands,” as shown in
the Yearbooks of the Department of Agriculture. For example, the
value of good plow lands in Idaho was reported to be 16.4 per cent
greater in 1921 and 15.5 per cent less in 1923 than in 1922. Conse-
quently, to obtain the respective land charges for 1921 and 1923, the
1922 land charges as obtained in the field investigation were increased
16.4 per cent in the one case and decreased 15.5 per cent in the other.
Yields for the three years.—The yields per acre for 1921, 1922, and
1923, were obtained from the farmers themselves and were checked
against the factory records except in Michigan and Ohio, where the
1923 crop had not been harvested when the investigators were in the
field. For these two States the 1923 yields were determined from
data furnished by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The 1922 yields for the farms investigated were increased or decreased
for 1923 in proportion as the yields for that year in the respective
States deviated from the 1922 yields. If the average yield for all
farms was 10 per cent lower in 1923 than in 1922, the average 1923
yields for the farms investigated were determined by reducing the
1922 yields for these farms by 10 per cent.
Method of weighting.—The annual averages for each State for 1921
and 1923 were arrived at by weighting on the basis of the 1922
production; the three-year average by weighting the commission’s
data for each year by the total production of the State as reported
by the Yearbooks of the United States Department of Agriculture.
The averages for the United States were obtained by weighting the
State costs by the total production of the State in each of the three
years, respectively, as shown in the Yearbooks of the Department of
Agriculture, and are combinations of data for the nine States only.
Additional data.—In addition to the data on the costs of production
and returns to the growers, the commission obtained, for the areas
investigated, much supplemental information on the economic status
of the sugar-beet industry—its present limitations, the possible in-
crease in beet acreage under existing conditions of farm manage-
ment, the effect of the sugar-beet crop upon yields of other crops
planted subsequently on the same ground, the effect of the beet-
sugar factories upon land values, and other valuable data.
$ The prices of fertilizer were furnished by the soil improvement committee of the National Fertilizer
Association
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