Updated figures available
for cost of farm operations

[MAY 22, 2000]  The long-awaited updates to the "Machinery Cost Estimates: Operation Costs" are now available from University of Illinois Extension. These figures are commonly referred to as "custom rates," but are not actually custom rates, since those are usually based on surveys of people doing field operations for cash. The U of I has instead developed a system of actual costs of operations based on depreciation, interest, insurance, housing, repairs, fuel and labor.

Where applicable, machinery sizes used in the cost of operations are typical of those used on an 800-acre grain farm for field operations, and about 100 hours per year for hay equipment. Other factors used in calculating costs are these: purchase price is 85 percent of the list price; interest rates of eight percent of remaining value; insurance and housing costs of one percent of remaining value; a diesel fuel cost of $1.00 per gallon (yes, I know the pump price is higher, but no taxes are paid on fuel used off-road); lubrication costs of 10 percent of the fuel costs; about 175 hours of use per year except hay equipment; about 10 years of life; labor costs of $12.50 per hour; and labor time of 110 percent of hours in that operation.

 

 

Some samples of commonly used rates are as follows: $5.00 per acre for a field cultivator, $8.80 per acre for a no-till planter, $27.70 per acre to combine corn, and $23.10 per acre to combine soybeans or small grains. Here is a sample of the way rates would be calculated, using the field cultivator as an example: $2.00 per acre for tractor overhead, $1.30 per acre for implement overhead, $.70 per acre for fuel and lubrication, and $1.00 per acre for labor.

 

 

There are also rates for tractor rentals of different sizes. An example would be a 185-horsepower tractor costing $59.45 per hour to operate. Many people not associated with farming may not realize that this tractor would have a list price of $107,100. Other tractor hourly costs would be 65-horsepower at $30.55, $39.55 for a 105-horsepower tractor, $73.65 for a 235-horsepower front-wheel-assist tractor, and $82.15 for a 360-horsepower four-wheel-drive tractor.

 

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An interesting item to note is that even though the equipment increases in list price, it is lasting longer. This means cost of operation rates have remained relatively flat over the last 15 years, or even decreased. When attempting to establish a true "custom rate," the addition of five to 15 percent may be appropriate, according to the authors.

Authors of the publication this time around were Gary Schnitkey and Dale Lattz, farm management specialists at the University of Illinois, and John Siemens, agricultural engineer emeritus.

 

 

Copies of FBM 0203 are available from the University of Illinois Extension Office, currently located in the Farm Bureau Building at 122 S. McLean St. For those who don’t get to Lincoln very often, you may call 732-8289 to have a copy mailed to you. This and other publications are also available on the Web at http://web.aces.uiuc.edu/farm.doc.

 

[John Fulton]

 

 


Downtown renovations are progressing

[MAY 19, 2000]  "You can always go, downtown." If you remember the first Volkswagen Beetle and the Beatles, you may also remember this line from a Petula Clark song. Downtown in the 60s was still a destination on a Saturday night. You were certain to see your neighbor on the way to a movie, for dinner, shopping or just strolling and enjoying a summer evening.

Then, as the 60s swung into the 70s, newly "liberated" women sped off to work each morning, the computer became king, and super shopping malls popped up to make life more convenient. In an effort to compete, downtown businesses updated with aluminum slipcovers or fieldstone face-lifts. In some cases, like Jacksonville, Ill., they closed off the streets to try to make the downtown more like a mall.

Now, as we enter the 21st century, the tide is slowly shifting again, only this time away from the sterile and anonymous mall. How many empty spots have you seen in any strip mall lately? A savvy shopper knows that one Gap looks like the next Gap, and the merchandise is no different in Illinois than it is in California. If you want something unique, something special, then you search for the shop that doesn’t have a hundred twin brothers in various cities. Where do you find that place? More often than not – downtown.

 

 

Fortunately, Lincoln is leaping ahead. If you haven’t discovered downtown lately, then you are behind the times. Several long-awaited and highly anticipated activities are coming together, virtually all at once, and the area has literally become a construction zone.

The most visible work is the Facade Renovation Program funded by a grant through the Illinois Department of Transportation and coordinated by the city of Lincoln. The grant picks up 80 percent of the cost, while the building owner puts in the other 20. If you’ve lived in Lincoln very long, you know this project has had more than its share of problems, but the bottom line is that 18 buildings are scheduled for face-lifts over the summer. All of these buildings are in the nationally registered historic district and when finished will make a dramatic difference in the appearance of the area.

 

 

As the scaffolding for this project appeared this spring, it seemed to entice other business owners, not affiliated with the project, to also put on a fresh face. Red Barn Antiques on Chicago Street got a new coat of barn red, two of the Steffens’ family buildings on Sangamon now glow in shades of teal and plum, and several buildings on Clinton Street took on new trim color last week.

Though not affiliated with the IDOT program, the Logan County Farm Bureau building is scheduled to begin renovation early this summer too. Plans for the highly visible building include new windows across the front and a more traditional facade.

And no, the city is not planning a downtown swimming pool for that large hole on the corner of Clinton and Kickapoo; that’s the foundation for the new Edward Jones investments office. The office will sit adjacent to the newly completed Don Shay Memorial Parking Plaza, a project which has progressed in stages over the last two years. In the last two months, the historically accurate lights have been installed, and trees, shrubs and flowers were planted thanks to the LCHS National Honor Society.

 

 

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Across from the parking lot lies Scully Park, undergoing some very visible changes. The centerpiece of this project is the reinstallation of the fountain. P & W Pool Supply has been contracted to do the fountain work, and Bode Welding built and installed the 36-inch fence surrounding the water. Bode also designed and installed the impressive new Scully Park sign over the main entry on Clinton Street. Four new single-globe lights similar to the other historic-style lights will replace the contemporary ones around the fountain. Eight picnic tables and four trash receptacles will also be added, making the park a destination for the lunch crowd and for families on a Sunday afternoon. Main Street Lincoln has coordinated this project with financial support from the Logan County Board, the Logan County Parks and Trails Foundation and another anonymous charitable foundation. The official rededication of the park will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 27. Seven members of the Scully family plan to attend.

Currently, if you stand beneath the new Scully Park sign and look to the north, your view is somewhat obstructed by two very large power poles carrying the lines across the street. These poles are being taken down, with the lines run underground. This will give a clear view through the Arcade to the south side of the lawn, where another long-awaited project will soon find a new home. The Indian maiden statue on the west side of the courthouse is scheduled for repair later this summer. When the work is complete, the Logan County Board has decided to place the maiden in a more prominent position on the south side of the courthouse.

The statue was a gift to the city from the Lincoln Woman’s Club in 1906. Sculpted of Tennessee pink marble by Charles Mulligan, it was displayed at the Illinois State Fair that year before being placed on the courthouse grounds. Mulligan is a well-known sculptor with works in Grant Park in Chicago and the Illinois Civil War Memorial in Vicksburg, as well as statues of Abraham Lincoln in Quincy and Pana. The maiden has lost her hand over the years and is in dire need of conservation efforts if she is to last another century. Main Street Lincoln is also coordinating this project. The cost for repair by a trained conservation technician and the addition of a storyboard is $10,000. Half of that is due before the statue is removed for repair. Contributions may be made to the "Save the Statue" account at the State Bank of Lincoln. Contributions of $100 or more will be permanently noted on a plaque by the statue.

 

 

The energy and excitement these projects have created have attracted new business to the downtown area as well. The Computer Connection has opened on Kickapoo, and the Other Side of the Fence has moved next door to them from the former location on Sangamon Street. Grapes and Grounds has opened next to Eckert’s Restaurant, and Wibben’s Computers opened in the former Painter’s Art and Frames building on Kickapoo. The Rubber Roost has moved to Clinton Street and made way for the opening of the Restaurant at the Depot.

Congratulations and thank yous are in order for all of the businesses and entities who are moving forward in downtown Lincoln. Now it’s up to us to support them and remember, …"there’s a place we can go – downtown."

 

[Wendy Bell, Main Street Lincoln program manager]

 


The future of publishing?

[MAY 17, 2000]  The invention of paper made an incredible impact on the world. Prior to paper, most writing was done on animal hides (lambs and sheep). These materials, vellum and parchment, were too expensive, too heavy and too bulky to allow for lengthy manuscripts, and too difficult to handle to give rise to what we currently know as books, newspapers and magazines. With the invention of the printing press came the discovery of the Chinese principles of papermaking, and voila, widespread publishing became possible. The world since has had this ongoing romance with the printed word.

Technology continues to explore alternative ways to do everything. The advent of the computer, and the onset of the internet has given rise to a whole new generation of publishing called e-publications. E-books, e-zines, and e-news(papers) are popping up everywhere. The internet is replete with volumes of books on the web (check out www.gutenberg.net), electronic magazines covering every different human interest, and major newspapers are all experimenting with electronic publishing.

Why this current trend toward electronic publishing when the world at large is in love with the printed word on paper?

 

 

Three reasons have emerged:

First, we realize the need to conserve natural resources and preserve the environment. Last year the United States produced 100 million tons of paper – a record production year. According to projections from the American Forest and Paper Associations, production this year will top that of last year. Each time we read a newspaper printed on paper, we are more and more convicted of the fact that we are consuming and disposing of a resource that is quickly being swallowed up. Prior to the advent of e-publishing, we had nothing to replace the printed word on paper.

 

 

Second, distribution of the written word on the internet is perfect and is economically more practical than the printed word on paper. The written word can travel across continents, under oceans, and even into space at the speed of the electron, and at a fraction of a fraction of the cost of distributing the printed word on paper. It doesn’t weigh anything, can be composed at a fraction of the cost and in much less time, and can be sent and received in a timely fashion.

Third, the internet has spawned an entirely new economy. This economy seems to provide news and the published word free to the reader, charging the entire cost of publication to the advertiser. The word "FREE" has become synonymous with the word "Internet." And people seem to like free.

In mid-March, according to an article in the June 2000 issue of Yahoo Internet Life (published on paper, of course), Stephen King, arguably the world’s most popular writer, published and distributed a novelette called "Riding the Bullet" on the internet for free. The result was that within the first 24 hours over 400,000 people downloaded the text, and at the height of the rush, the traffic was so great that it crashed many servers, preventing untold thousands from partaking in this groundbreaking event.

 

 

The success of "Riding the Bullet" signaled to many that the world was ready for e-publishing and ready for the non-printed word.

 

(To top of second column in this article)

While the computer seems to be perfect for the process of writing the news, and the internet seem to be perfect for the distribution of the news, the printed-word-on-paper hasn’t vanished. It seems that while people like to publish stuff online, they don’t (yet) like to read stuff online. Online publishers like their readers to keep their articles short and punchy because readers don’t finish reading articles more than three typewritten pages in length on the web. A recent Xerox study said that three out of four e-mail users print out every message that is longer than half a page. Web editors have reported that links at the top of web pages are clicked more often than links at the bottom of web pages (seeming to indicate that people are not reading to the bottom of the page). And most computer users report that by the end of the day their eyes feel like bouncing ping-pong balls from looking at the computer screen. Users report that they want to sit down comfortably in an armchair and read a paper newspaper, or a book or a poem. And then there is the dilemma of lugging a computer into the bathroom for reading, or into bed at night to bring up your favorite volumes.

The answer, it seems, may be in the development of new technology which weds the ease of publication and distribution via the computer and internet with a simulation of the romance and portability of the printed-word-on paper. Companies are racing ahead to develop electronic paper which will have the look and feel of ordinary paper, but will use new technology to temporarily display published images (e-ink on e-paper). The result may be that a reader will download the text into a plastic-like medium, to be displayed, read and then reused by the reader (currently under development by Xerox). Others report that the reader will hold a tube and draw a page out of that tube. The page will then be displayed, read and then will be drawn back into the tube like a window shade, to receive new text and images.

 

 

In the near future, books may be electronically published in what looks and feels like a real book, with a leather or canvas cover and what feel like real paper pages. The difference would be that there would be advanced circuitry in the cover and the spine of the book which would electronically display the text and pictures on the pages. When you are done with the e-book, slip in a new memory-module, the new novel is displayed, and you are ready for more nighttime or anytime reading pleasure.

E-publishing is making more inroads every day. More and more documents are coming to the web, more and more newspapers are publishing online, and more and more magazines are experimenting with electronic publishing. And technology firms around the world are racing to develop the device which will be accepted as the next evolutionary step beyond paper. Stay tuned.

 

[Jim Youngquist]