COSTS OF PRODUCING SUGAR BEETS 
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 irrigation 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 community as estimated by prominent and well-informed local 
men other than farmers—i. e., bankers, realtors, land appraisers for 
the Federal land banks, economists, farm-management experts and 
agronomists of the State agricultural colleges, the local county agri- 
cultural 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 reason- 
ableness 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 costs per unit of each 
quantity. This method has been used by the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture and by a large number of agricultural cost 
accountants, and is based upon the fact that the acre is the unit 
employed by farmers in their calculations, and that the hours of 
labor peracre, pounds of seed planted per acre, manure applied per acre, 
and other basic unit requirements in cost vary but little from year to 
year ® unless there is a radical change in farm practice. For factors 
exhibiting variations from year to year, such as yields per acre, 
wages, contract labor rates, prices of horse feeds, prices of seed, 
prices of commercial fertilizer, and land charges, due allowance was 
made. 
Illustrations of individual calculations may help to make the 
method clear to the reader. 
Wages for 1923 had been obtained on the schedules by the agents 
of the commission while they were collecting the 1922 data. Wages 
for 1921 were derived by adjusting the 1922 wages, as found in the 
investigation, by the percentage of change in monthly wages (with- 
out board) paid farm laborers. According to the available wage 
29 
._® Comparison of the commission’s data with similar data obtained by the Department of Agriculture 
in investications made for other vears shows a close agreement in these basic units of cost.