Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


 SOURCES AND METHOD OF COLLECTING INFORMATION
 Crop and livestock information other than for peanuts dug
was secured by personal interview with white farmers in Madi-
son County, Florida. Data for peanuts dug were obtained from
white farmers in Jackson County, Florida. Farmers were asked
to estimate the time required, by 2-week periods, for each opera-
tion in the production of crops and livestock. They were asked
also the kind and amount of materials ordinarily used in the
production of each crop and class of livestock and what their
average yields had been over the last 5 years. In summarizing
the data, only the most common practices were considered. For
example, if most farmers broke corn land with 2-mule plows the
time required to break land is shown as an average of the es-
timates of all farmers who followed this practice. For this
reason tractor operations were omitted, although some records
were obtained for crops on which tractors were used. Tractors
were commonly used for breaking land, the time required vary-
ing with the size of the tractor. To break an acre of land, large,
medium and small tractors required an average of 1.1, 1.4, and
1.9 hours, respectively. Farmers breaking land with 1 mule re-
quired 9.0 hours per acre. Farmers using either tractors or 1
mule for breaking land can make adjustments in the labor re--
quirements presented on this basis.
 The last section of this publication illustrates some uses of
labor and material requirements data. The farm used as an
illustration is a successful 1-mule farm located in Madison
County. A detailed farm business record was obtained for this
farm as it was operated during 1942.

 LABOR AND MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR CROPS
 CORN
 Labor and material records were secured from 19 farms which
produced 868 acres of corn grown alone (Table 1). Included in
this number are 3 farms which produced a total of 465 acres.
Most farms studied had between 10 and 30 acres and for this
reason the data in Table 1 apply best to the latter group of
smaller farmers. Large acreages of corn were usually produced
with tractor power. On these tractor farms the time required
to produce and harvest 1 acre of corn averaged 10.6 man hours,
5.6 tractor hours and 2.0 mule hours. The time required per
acre for tractor to break land was 1.4 hours, to prepare and
plant 1.7 hours, and to cultivate 2.5 hours.