CULTURE OF RYE. 109 



per day, with a sickle ; and the two brothers — swept a six- 

 teen acre piece with their cradles in one day. Perhaps they 

 had a jug of rum at each corner of the field — for it was in 

 the times when men who had harvesting to do always "fur- 

 nished." We certainly can't do such things now. And I 

 look back upon harvests of fifteen years since, when four men 

 and two boys put the crop of that same twenty-five acre field 

 — there were seventeen heavy loads of it, I recollect — in the 

 barn inside of five days, with somewhat of surprise. Two 

 men cut it with cradles at fifty cents per acre, in a little more 

 than two days and a half. It will require the hum of a power 

 reaper to do it as quickly again. As to present profits, I will 

 state that that field lias been going begging for a year or two 

 to any responsible party who would take the same upon 

 shares, furnishing seed and labor, till the grain is put in 

 shock, and taking two-thirds of the crop for pay. The birches 

 and moss are coming in some, but one pair of oxen could 

 handle a plow there well enough. A more common way is 

 for. the owner to furnish half the seed and receive half the 

 crop. The matter with these fields is that though the grain 

 of the soil is right to produce a capital quality of rye, they 

 are about twenty-five dollars per acre too poor to be handled 

 with profit. They are like free horses which yield their 

 strength to any sort of a driver. They are like big mills 

 without machinery, or storehouses without goods, and are 

 simply awaiting the future needs and better cultivation of a 

 growing population. A man who liked to work upon rye, 

 could turn his physical force and a small money capital, into 

 cash, by treating such lands to wood ashes or fish guano that 

 didn't cost too much. Seventy-five bushels of ashes at 

 twenty cents, or half a ton of fish pommace at eighteen dol- 

 lars per ton, would not make a bad showing with a vigorous 

 worker who owns his land. Probably a catch of clover could 

 be got with such a dressing, which would make more barns, 

 and stock, and labor needed, and at last, pleasant homes, 

 with rugged children growing up on rye bread, with a stom- 

 ach, bye and bye, for what people consider something better. 

 As regards threshing. Wliat rye we raise we generally 



