AGRICULTURAL MECHANICS AND RURAL ECONOMY. 117 



a difference of one quarter. Then one quarter of the above figures w ould give the value of 

 this point at twenty-six. 



The 10th. Point — "Manner of leaving the grain for binding." More difference than one 

 hand can be made in binding by the gavels being well or badly laid. Between the best and 

 worst machine to rake from there is in the manner of depositing the grain at least a differ- 

 ence of a hand and a half, costing for the fifteen days $45, making this point, therefore, 

 forty-five. 



The 11th Point — "Saving of grain in cutting, binding, and handling, and in the stack." 

 Those who have compared the working of different reapers, know that some will save largely 

 as compared with others, and it is very easy to make a difference of several bushels in each 

 day's work of ten to fifteen acres, even to the amount of a bushel or more an acre, particu- 

 larly if the grain is over ripe. 



There is, first, the loss in not cutting clean ; second, shattering by the reel and in cutting ; 

 third, shattering in raking off; fourth, loss from scattered grain being badly raked off; fifth, 

 loss in handling the sheaves, the grain not having been raked straight, and consequently being 

 imperfectly secured in the sheaf; and sixth, liability to injury in the stack by the weather, if 

 the heads are not all laid one way in the raking. 



These losses, though depending much upon the hand, will all be found to exist, and greatly 

 to vary between different machines with good hands. Some of them are trifling ; yet in the 

 aggregate they make a point of much more value than any other. 



Suppose the difference of loss in extreme cases is only half a bushel to the acre — that one 

 hundred and twenty acres of wheat and sixiy acres of other grains are cut — which would 

 be twelve acres per day for the season of fifteen days. Thus there is saved sixty bushels of 

 wheat, worth say $1 per bushel, and thirty bushels of oats, barley, rye, &c, worth say forty 

 cents, making the saving $72. Though seventy-two seems at first to be large for this point, 

 it ought to be set higher rather than lower. 



If this scale is at all correct, there is, of course, great difference in machines. If the 

 forty or fifty varieties invented, and of which some thirty are more or less in use, could all 

 be brought together, some would run very low in the scale, while others would go high. 

 Of the points in the scale, two hundred and six (less ten in the 8th point of raking) equal 

 one hundred and ninety-six, are estimated in money value of say only $14 a season, making 

 $210. Some of the reapers would not in thorough trials reach sixty on these points, while 

 others would reach one hundred and sixty and over, thus showing there may be a difference 

 in reapers of over $100 in a single season's use. 



With so large a difference in reapers, and the demand so rapidly increasing, and it being 

 difficult — almost impossible — for farmers to compare them themselves, it is not strange that 

 so many attempts should be made to test them by farmers, united in their State and county 

 societies. Yet how few of the numerous trials have as yet resulted in any permanent good ! 

 Wherefore this abortive result in efforts which have cost so much in time, labor, and money 

 to societies, committees, reaper-builders, and the public generally? Is not the failure chiefly 

 owing to the want of a systematic plan to insure thoroughness and guard against mistakes ? 

 If so, a good scale of this kind will correct the. evils, and it is useless to go into trials without 

 something of the sort. 



Scale of Points in Trials of Mowers. 



Cost of machine. 



Simplicity of construction to do its work. 



Facility of management, including time and room required for turning. 



Durability and reliability. 



Adaptation to varied and uneven surfaces. 



Adaptation to cutting close to the ground. 



Freedom of the knife from clogging by fibrous and gummy matter. 



Motive power, or power required for a given amount of work. 



Rapidity, or amount of cutting in a given time. 



The manner of leaving the grass for curing. 



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