14 COSTS OF PRODUCING SUGAR BEETS 
beet crop. If two teams, valued at $400, were used in the produc- 
tion of sugar beets for only one-half of the total time that they were 
employed on the farm during the year, the remainder of the time 
being used on other farm crops, only one-half of the total cost of 
maintaining the horses was charged to sugar beets, and consequently 
only $200, or one-half of the total value of the two teams, was allo~ 
cated to sugar-beet production. 
Preliminary tabulations of cost data in the possession of the com- 
mission show that the advances made by the beet-sugar manufactur- 
ing companies to the sugar-beet growers for the payment of con- 
tract labor averaged $10 an acre and ran on the average for a period 
of four months. This is equal in capital value to $3.33 an acre for a 
year, which at 6 per cent interest amounts to 20 cents per acre, or 1.8 
cents per ton, of sugar beets. 
Since over 80 per cent of the handwork of blocking, thinning, and 
hoeing required in the cultivation of the sugar-beet crop is done by 
contract laborers paid by the acre, and a large percentage of the 
growers of sugar beets pay to the beet-sugar companies interest on 
these advances from the time each operation is completed until the 
beets are harvested in the fall (when the amount of the loan plus the 
interest is deducted from the farmers’ beet checks), and since this is an 
actual out-of-pocket expense to a large percentage of the growers, 
this $3.33 per acre is shown as a part of the capital employed in the 
production of beets. 
Prices. 
Prices of sugar beets are the weighted average prices received by 
farmers for their beets, whether unloaded at the sugar factory or at 
the railroad spur or loading station. The returns per acre were ob- 
tained by multiplying the price per ton of beets by the number of 
tons harvested and dividing the product by the number of acres of 
sugar beets harvested.