Agricultural pricesWallace, Henry A. (Henry Agard)
Science
Agricultural prices
Wallace, Henry A. (Henry Agard)
Agriculture -- Statistics; Farm produce; Prices
As an example of a more complex application of the ratio method, assume
that after thoro investigation by the farm management people, it is
found that on typical farms 70 per cent of the cost of producing hogs is
represented by corn, 5 per cent by tankage, 3 per cent by oats, 3 per
cent by pasture, 2 per cent by middlings, 6 per cent by man labor, and
11 per cent by miscellaneous items, such as risk, interest, etc., all of
which vary in about the same ratio as the other items already
enumerated. Spreading the 11 per cent of miscellaneous items over the
other items, we find that of the cost of producing hogs, 78 per cent is
represented by corn, 3 per cent by oats, 6 per cent by tankage, 4 per
cent by pasture, 2 per cent by middlings, and 7 per cent by man labor.
Now, as an average of the ten-year period, 1907 to 1916, the value in
the month of January, at Chicago, was 59.9 cents for corn and 43.4 cents
for oats. The value of middlings on a Milwaukee basis was $22.77 per
ton. The value of tankage (this is a rough estimate) was $46 per ton;
the value of pasture land, $66 per acre, and the value of an hour of man
labor 14.6 cents. Hogs averaged $7 per hundredweight.
According to the ratio theory, this ten-year average price of $7 per
hundredweight for hogs must represent approximately cost of production.
Seventy-eight per cent of $7 gives $5.46 as the share of corn in the
production cost, and in like manner 21 cents is the value of the oats,
42 cents the value of the tankage, 28 cents the value of the pasture, 14
cents the value of the middlings, and 49 cents the value of the man
labor. With corn at 79.9 cents a bushel, as it was during this ten-year
period, and other feeds at prices as mentioned in the foregoing, it is
obvious that it required, to equal one hundred pounds of hog weight, the
value of 9.1 bushels of corn, one-half bushel of oats, one-two hundred
and fiftieth of the value of an acre of ordinary rough pasture land,
twelve pounds of middlings, eighteen pounds of tankage, and 3.4 hours of
man labor. In the specific month of January, 1907, corn was worth 41.6
cents; oats, 35.4 cents; middlings, $18.37; ordinary rough pasture land,
$51 per acre; tankage, $40 a ton, and man labor, 13 cents an hour. Nine
bushels of corn at 41.6 cents gives $3.78; half a bushel of oats at 35.4
cents gives 18 cents; twelve pounds of middlings at $18.37 per ton gives
10 cents; one-two hundred and fiftieth of the value of an acre of
ordinary pasture land, at $51 per acre, gives 20 cents; eighteen pounds
of tankage at $40 per ton gives 36 cents, and 3.4 hours of man labor at
13 cents gives 44 cents. Adding, we get $5.06 as the cost of producing
hogs in January, 1907. In January, 1908, with corn at 58.5 cents per
bushel, oats at 49.9 cents, middlings at $22.62 per ton, tankage at $40
per ton, pasture at $51 per acre, and man labor at 13 cents an hour, we
find, by applying the same formula, that the cost of producing one
hundred pounds of hogs was $6.69.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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