FARMEKS' INSTITUTES. 155 



remarkably low price. Here is a model of one in which you can rock, go to 

 sleep, and churn. Many believe in such machines, and the majority of farmers, 

 I notice, are using combined reapers and mowers, which may in some cases be 

 strokes of true economy, but in most instances the extra wear more than bal- 

 ances the extra cost, besides giving you a poor mower or a poor reaper the whole 

 time. 



No machine can do well different kinds of work, requiring different or con- 

 flicting capacities. All such attempts at combination invariably end in such a 

 complication of parts as partially or utterly to destroy its effectiveness in any one 

 direction, and make it more liable to accident in every direction. Simplicity is 

 an essential qualification in any machine, as every unnecessary complexity 

 increases the draft and the liability to accidents, thus injuring the utility of the 

 whole machine. 



We will consider for a moment the requirements for the reaper and the 

 mower, and show that they can not both be satisfied in a combined machine. 

 The work of the reaper is generally found on soft ground, which is more or less 

 rough, and consists in cutting hollow and stiff straw, and carrying a portion of 

 what it cuts some little distance ; consequently the reajaer needs strong driving 

 machinery, — large drive wheels, — slow motion to the knives, and little strength 

 to the cutting parts. On tlie other hand, the mower does its work on a good 

 sod, over comparatively smooth ground, and its work consists in cutting very 

 tough and tine vegetable products ; consequently the mower requires light driving 

 machinery, — light drive wheels, — ^fast motion to the knives, and consequently 

 great strength to the cutting parts. From this you see that every essential qual- 

 ification of the mower is entirely different from the corresponding qualifications 

 of the reaper, and every attempt at combination can but impair its effectiveness 

 either for mowing or reaping, or both. 



Hon. M. L. Dunlap of Champaign, 111., in the TJ. S. Agricultural Report of 

 18G3, says : ''He has never as yet seen a good combined reaper and mower, and 

 would never recommend them thus made. * * * The six-feet combined 

 reapers and mowers require four horses, and are much heavier, and will do but 

 little more work in a day at best, as there are always more or less detentions 

 with them. Tiiere can be no economy in thus combining the two machines, 

 and if the farmer will look at the state of facts as they exist, he will never be 

 induced to purchase them. Two hundred acres of grass may be said to be a fair 

 estimate for the use of the mower in one season. The cost of a mower is, say 

 880 00. The interest, repairs, and deterioration will be about $25 00, or about 

 ten cents an acre, assuming the machine to last ten years. We know one 

 farmer who cut twelve hundred acres of meadow with four machines, drawn by 

 two horses each, and driven by boys of fourteen to sixteen years of age. To 

 have cut this amount of grass with combined machines would have required four 

 additional span of horses, and expert drivers in place of the four boys. We do 

 not think a combined machine would stand more than two seasons' work at this 

 rate, when the account would be as follows : 



Use of mower at 10 cents per acre 1120 00 



Pour teams, 30 days each, 120 days 120 00 



Four boys, 30 days each^. 120 days 120 00 



Giving total cost of thirty cents an acre, or -. . . . $360 00 



