because of the amount of these items required to operate conveyors. Annual

fixed costs are much higher for the conveyor method, because of,::the corre-

spondingly higher investment in equipment.

 Total labor and equipment costs for the two methods are shown in

Table 13. Because of lower fixed costs for the hand truck method, total

costs for this method are much lower at low annual volume levels than for

the conveyor method. As annual volume is increased, the relative difference

in costs between the two methods decreases, until costs are slightly lower

at the highest volume shown in the table. It is questionable whether the

use of the conveyor method is justified under these circumstances. Another

reason to question use of the conveyor method is that most packinghouses

use one or more workers to transfer bags manually between segments of the

conveyor. In such cases, costs would be higher than shown in this report.

For example, for a packinghouse packing about 75,000 hundredweights a

year using the conveyor method, the cost for one additional worker would be

$260.

 Analysis of costs for paper bags.--Fixed and variable costs for

handling 50-pound paper bags are shown in Table 14. Variable costs per bag

are considerably higher for the hand truck method. Labor costs are twice

as large for this method as for the conveyor method. On the other hand,

annual fixed charges are much higher for the conveyor method because of the

large investment required in facilities. Also, high labor costs in the hand

truck method are moderated, to some extent, by materially lower costs for

electricity and repairs.