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² Agricultural productivity indices are found in Donal D. Durost and Evelyn T. Black, Changes in Farm Production and Efficiency, 1978, United States Department of Agriculture, Economics, Statistics and Cooperative Service, Statistical Bulletin, 628 (Washington, D.C., 1980), 68–71.Google Scholar

³ The decennial and later (1925) quinquennial enumerations of agriculture by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Yearbook of Agriculture of the USDA and that department's Agricultural Statistics (1936 +), as well as state publications such as the Iowa Yearbook of Agriculture provide basic production data. Brief accounts of advances in veterinary science are found in Murray, Charles, “Combating Animal Diseases and Winning,” in Ross, Earle D. et al. , A Century of Farming in Iowa, 1846–1946. (Ames, Iowa, 1946), 167–84,Google Scholar

and Jensen, Rue, “The Vets Save Our Beef and Milk and the Bacon,” in USDA, That We May Eat: Year Book, 1975 (Washington, D.C., 1975), 75–84.Google Scholar

See also Moores, Richard G., Fields of Rich Toil: The Development of the University of Illinois College of Agriculture (Urbana, 1970), 209Google Scholar

and Wilcox, R. H. et al. , Some Important Factors Affecting Costs in Hog Production, University of Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 390 (Urbana, 1933), 54–57.Google Scholar

For changes in hog production see: Latta, William C., Outline History of Indiana Agriculture (Lafayette, Indiana, 1938), 73–74, 187–88;Google Scholar

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For a view of the Illinois system, see Ralph Allen, “A System of Permanent Agriculture,” and Smith, L. H., “The Work of the Agricultural Experiment Station,” in Papers Presented at a Conference at Illinois, Agricultural Policy, 01 26 and 27, 1922 (Urbana, 1922?), 11–15, 37–45.Google Scholar

Case, H. C. M., Wilcox, R. H. and Berg, H. A., Organizing the Corn-Belt Farm for Profitable Production …, University of Illinois, AES Bulletin 329 (Urbana, 1929) illustrates the types of good practices recommended by the stations.Google Scholar

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outlines the role of the county agent and Scott, Roy V. the origins of extension in The Reluctant Farmer: The Rise ofAgricultural Extension to 1914 (Urbana, 1970).Google Scholar

⁴ McKibben, Eugene G. and Griffin, R. Austin, Changes in Farm Power and Equipment: Tractors, Trucks, and Automobiles, Works Progress Administration, National Research Project, Report A-9 (Philadelphia, 1938), particularly 1–18, 76–77;Google Scholar

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⁵ Ankli, Robert E., “Horses vs. Tractors on the Corn Belt”, Agricultural History, 54 (01 1980), 134–48 lists many of the experiment station publications dealing with this issue.Google Scholar

See also U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Farm Horse (Washington, D.C., 1933).Google Scholar

⁶ McKibben and Griffin, Tractors, Trucks and Automobiles, p. 58.Google Scholar

⁷ Gay, Carl W., Productive Horse Husbandry (Chicago, 1932), 316;Google Scholar

Hopkins, John A. Jr, Horses, Tractors and Farm Equipment, Iowa State College, AES Bulletin 264 (Ames, 1929), 389;Google Scholar

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also illustrate the narrow margins of profitability found by farm management researchers. For a salutary discussion of the problems involved in this type of research see Jasny, Naum, Research Methods on Farm Use of Tractors (New York, 1938);Google Scholar

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⁹ Outlines of the development of hybrid seed corn are sketched in Crabb, A. Richard, The Hybrid Corn Makers: Prophets of Plenty (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1947);Google Scholar

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¹¹ Mosher, Martin L., Early Iowa Corn Yield Tests and Related Later Programs (Ames, 1962).Google Scholar

¹² On the other hand, if the farmer had held his corn and received the average 1938 price these returns would have been reduced to $2.17 and $1.78. This, of course, ignores gross supply-side effects.Google Scholar

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²¹ Wallaces' Farmer, see particularly: Sep. 1, 1925, p. 1130; Nov. 19, 1926, p. 1509; Sep. 16, 1927, p. 1184; Nov. 18, 1927, p. 1498; Sep. 14, 1928, p. 1261; Nov. 28, 1928, p. 1312; Feb. 15, 1929, p. 237; Aug. 9, 1929, p. 1095; Oct. 11, 1929, p. 1367; Aug. 2, 1930, p. 1307; Aug. 30, 1930, p. 1407; Feb. 14, 1931, pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

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²⁴ Ibid., Sep. I2, 1924, p. 1213.

The makers of the Belle City Continental Corn Picker, an early tractor-mounted, single-row machine claimed picking costs of three cents per bushel, “less than half the cost of hand picking,” but did not present the details of their calculation (Wallaces' Farmer, Sep. 7, 1928, p. 1223). The advertisements for the New Idea Two-Row Picker in 1929 presented the picking costs of Leo Brothers of Dysart, Iowa, who claimed, after calculating labor, fuel and machinery depreciation changes, that their costs across 345 acres of corn amounted to 3.78¢ per bushel on a crop in which the yield varied from 45 to 75 bushels per acreGoogle Scholar (Wallaces' Farmer, Sep. 6, 1929, p. 1205). See also, Wallaces' Farmer, Aug. 19, 1927, p. 1067; Sep. 7, p. 1223; Sep. 28, 1928, p. 1312; Sep. 21, 1928, p. 1294.Google Scholar

²⁵ The cost functions for two-rowmechanical pickers and data sources are as follows:

1. Illinois, 1928–29:

(45 bu. per acre; hand picking = 9.1¢per bu.)

Kenneth H. Myers, Methods and Costs of Husking Corn in the Field, USDA Farmers’ Bulletin 1715 (Washington, D.C., 1933), p. 12–14.

2. Illinois, 1931:

(42.9 bu. per acre; hand picking = 6.3¢ per bu.)

P. E. Johnson, Reducing Costs of Corn Husking, University of Illinois AES Circular 396 (Urbana, 1932), pp. 3–9.

3. Indiana, 1929:

(40.8 bu. per acre; hand picking = 10¢ per bu.)

L. G. Hobson and R. H. Wileman, Mechanical Corn Pickers in Indiana, Purdue AES Bulletin 362 (Lafayette, 1932), pp. 4–14.

4. Indiana, 1931:

(47.6 bu. per acre; hand picking = 6.1¢ per bu.)

Ibid.

5. Illinois, 1937:

(62.2 bu. per acre, pull-type picker; hand picking = 9.6¢ per bu.)

M. P. Gehlbach, “Harvesting Costs Reduced by the Use of Mechanical Corn Pickers,” Illinois Farm Economics 42 (Nov. 1938), 205–07.

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²⁸ Aspects of the innovation process are discussed in: Rosenberg, Nathan, The Economics of Technological Change: Selected Readings (Baltimore, 1971),Google Scholar

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²⁹ An estimate derived from the 20,029 mechanical pickers used in Iowa in 1939.Google Scholar

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