COSTS OF PRODUCING SUGAR BEETS 11 
General costs. 
General costs are those incurred as a part of the entire farm busi- 
ness and must therefore be allocated to the several farm enterprises, 
of which the production of sugar beets is one. They include costs 
for equipment, irrigation, taxes, and minor items. 
Equipment costs include repairs, depreciation, and costs of housing 
beet implements. Taxes on implements used in beet production are 
allocated to “Taxes,” insurance to “Minor general costs,” and labor 
of repairing machinery to “Labor on machine operations,” as indi- 
rect labor. The cost of each implement is prorated to beets on the 
basis of use as estimated by the farmers and checked by the agents 
of the commission. 
Irrigation costs include only the amounts paid by the farmers for 
the maintenance of irrigating canals and ditches, cost of canvas 
dams, etc. The labor costs of irrigating are charged to “Labor on 
machine operations.” These costs are prorated on the basis of the 
amount of Irrigation water used for sugar beets and for other pur- 
poses. 
Taxes include those paid on real estate and on persenal property, 
whether paid by tenant or landlord, but do not include income 
taxes. They are allocated to sugar beets on the basis of relative 
investment. 
Minor general costs include the proportionate part chargeable to 
sugar beets of the cost of fuel (gas) and oil for farm pumps and auto- 
trucks, beet growers’ and other association dues, fencing repairs 
(cash), telephones, maintaining drains, and running the farm auto- 
mobiles. The allocation of these costs was made by the farmer and 
checked by the agents of the commission. 
Credits. 
Credits or deductions from costs include the cash sale value of beet, 
tops and the saving, if any, to the grower in purchasing from the 
factory pulp, molasses, and sugar at wholesale prices. In the ab- 
sence of exact information concerning the increase or decrease in 
yields of crops rotating with beets this factor was disregarded in the 
cost calculations. 
Capital charges. 
Capital charges are the costs, in the form of either rent or interest, 
involved in the use of property. In sugar-beet production capital 
consists of (1) land; (2) equipment,® such as machinery and tools 
and horses used in the industry; and (3) working capital, whether 
in the form of money or credit, used by farmers in the production 
of sugar beets. 
In order to place the data on a comparable basis, all of the 2,242 
farms investigated in the United States were treated as if owned by 
the operators, even though cash rental was paid on 5.4 per cent and 
share rental on 41.7 per cent of the harvested beet acreage. In all 
tables of this report capital charges for the use of land and for other 
$ As provided in the schedule (see p. 71) adopted for obtaining cost data from the growers, the 
capital charge for the use of the houses which the contract and regular farm laborers occupied was classed 
as a perquisite furnished laborers, and appears, therefore, as a part of the labor cost, rather than as a sepa- 
rate charge. Similarly, the capital charge for that part of the horse barn allocated to sugar beets was 
included in the horse-labor cost. and the canital charge for shelter for machinery and tools was included 
In the cost of equipment.