‘COSTS OF PRODUCING SUGAR BEETS 
Sugar beets are now almost universally purchased upon a sliding 
price scale based upon the market price of refined sugar. Thus all 
factors affecting the price of sugar are reflected in the farmer’s price 
of sugar beets and in turn in his profits from the crop. 
METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 
The survey method was used in this investigation, that being a 
generally accepted and appropriate method of obtaining the produc- 
tion costs of an agricultural product. Trained agriculturists and 
cost accountants familiar with agricultural costs and farm practice 
in producing sugar beets and supplied with cost schedules? visited 
the growers on their farms and there obtained the necessary data 
for determining costs. 
Detailed data for 1922.—At the time the investigation was ordered 
the greater part of the 1923 crop of sugar beets had not been har- 
vested. Since the commission desired data for the most recently 
harvested crop, detailed costs were obtained for the 1922 production. 
These data were carefully checked and wherever possible were 
verified by the agents of the commission. Wages were checked against 
the going rates for the locality. Contract labor rates per acre and 
the prices of beet seed per pound were the actual figures stated in 
the contracts made by growers with the laborers and the factories. 
All of the data obtained from the growers on the amounts and value 
of perquisites supplied to contract laborers and the extra wages paid 
to them were checked against the local community rates for such 
items, and some of them were confirmed by the laborers themselves. 
Prices of horse feeds were checked against quoted market prices and 
prices of local dealers; taxes paid, against the tax records in the 
county courthouse; irrigation costs against the books of the irriga- 
tion company and the assessment records in the county courthouse. 
Land values and annual land rentals and the values of implements 
and work horses were compared with the averages for the commu- 
nity as estimated by prominent and well-informed local men other 
than farmers—such as bankers, realtors, land appraisers for the 
Federal land banks, economists, farm-management experts and agron- 
omists of the State agricultural colleges, the local county agricul- 
tural agents, and the farm-implement dealers. Interest rates were 
checked against rates given by the local bankers; the prices received 
for sugar beets against the prices paid the individual farmer as taken 
from the books of the sugar-manufacturing companies; the acreage 
and yield of beets per acre against the records of the factory with 
which the farmer contracted. Every schedule was carefully scruti- 
nized by a competent agricultural cost accountant other than the one 
taking the record from the farmer, both for the general reasonable- 
ness of the record and for accuracy as to quantity and value of the 
specific cost items. 
Calculations of costs for 1921 and 1923.—The details of the 1921 
and 1923 costs were not obtained directly from growers but were 
determined by applying to the quantities of labor, horse-hours, seed, 
and other material employed in the production of an acre of sugar 
beets in 1922, the respective 1921 and 1923 cost per unit of each 
quantity. This method has been used by the United States Depart- 
4 See appendix for form of schedule used.