34 COSTS OF PRODUCING SUGAR BEETS
The proper basis for prorating the costs of such items is that which most
equitably distributes them according to the benefits derived.
The amount of indirect labor varies with the individual farm and
farmer. Investigations of detailed cost accounts kept on represent-
ative farms in Minnesota, Kansas, and New York show that the
total indirect labor on such farms amounts to from 10.8 to 23.4 per
cent of the total labor.” The variation in rates is due in part to
differences in cost-accounting methods and in part to differences in the
types of farms considered. Analysis of these data shows that indirect
labor, such ‘as is chargeable to sugar beets, ranges from 614 to 10 per
cent of the total direct labor. As 614 per cent of total direct labor
on sugar beets amounts to approximately 15 per cent of the labor on
machine operations on beets, indirect labor is calculated by adding
15 per cent of labor on machine operations to the total direct labor
charges. The hours of direct labor have been used as the basis of
prorating the indirect labor.
Contract or hand-labor costs include blocking, thinning, hoeing,
pulling, topping, and sometimes the loading of the beets onto wagons.
All such work is “hand” labor, as distinguished from ‘machine’
labor, such as plowing and harrowing, which are usually performed
by the farmer and operator or by his regular hired help. Because
such hand labor is largely done under contract and because the con-
tracts are uniformly drawn to include the same items it is grouped
under “contract labor.” Hand labor, whether performed by labor-
ers under contract for so much an acre, by the farm operator and his
family, or by the regular farm-hired help, is charged at the contract
rates. To the amount charged at the regular contract rate are added
extra wages where actually paid for harvesting a crop yielding more
than a specified tonnage or for extra hoeing, and also the estimated
value of perquisites actually furnished the contract laborers by the
grower of the beets.
The contract rates were charged for these labor items because on
the average for all the areas investigated in the nine States 82.4 per
cent of the blocking and thinning, 77.3 per cent of the hoeing, and
82.1 per cent of the pulling and topping were actually done under
contract by laborers hired specifically for this work at so much an
acre; while 13.5 per cent of the blocking and thinning, 16.2 per cent
of the hoeing, and 13.1 per cent of the pulling and topping were done
by members of the growers’ families, other than the growers them-
selves, and 4.1 per cent of the blocking and thinning, 6.5 per cent of
the hoeing, and 4.8 per cent of the pulling and topping by the growers
and their regular hired help other than the contract beet laborers.
The interest on the advances made by the sugar companies to the
farmers for the payment of contract labor is treated separately as a
capital charge, and is therefore not included as part of contract
labor costs. }
Horse costs, often referred to as horse-labor costs, were determined
by separate inquiries carried on concurrently with the farm study
of sugar-beet costs. These inquiries were conducted on a number
of the same farms for which beet costs were ascertained. Feeds
11 Minnesota Experiment Station Bull. 205, p. 92, shows that on 21 farms in 1920, 16.3 per cent of total
labor was indirect labor; on 22 farms in 1921, 10.8 per cent of total labor was indirect labor; and on the
average for the two years 1920, 1921, the indirect labor was 15.7 per cent of the direct labor. U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture Bull. 1271, p. 68, shows a rate of 13.5 per cent on Minnesota farms. U. S. Department
of Agriculture manuscript, in press, shows a rate of 16 per cent on Kansas farms. New York Experiment
Station Bull. 414, p. 44, shows a rate of 23.4 per cent on Mew York farms.
