o .' 



26 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. • [Jan., 



with the •' riding-boss " or overseer, makes 6Y men and 95 animals 

 in the whole " crew." This crew and its machines and appliances 

 averaged 3,825 bushels per day, equal to 57 bushels per man per 

 day. 



On the large ranches, a whole season's crop will be cut, threshed, 

 cleaned and sacked ready for market at an average of fifty bushels 

 per day per man, and this is often done. I have taken much pains 

 to study out the relations between the effectiveness of human 

 labor when supplemented by modern machinery in gathering 

 grain, compared with that employed at the beginning of this 

 century. To cut grain as then cut, thresh and clean for market, 

 each day's human labor did not average in this country over four 

 bushels. I think that the average was less rather than more. 

 "What the average now is I cannot say, but probably more than 20, 

 and, in such conditions as pertain in California, over 50 is often 

 done. Indeed, this is by no means the limit. Many rnachines are 

 at work in the great Central Valley which cut, thresh, and clean 

 for market in the same operation. One visited, at work 

 on Mr. Hoffmann's ranch in the San Joaquin Valley last year, will 

 illustrate. A huge machine driven by 20 mules, worked ten 

 abreast, averaged 36 acres per day, and would cut 40 acres. It 

 was worked by four men, and cut a swath a rod wide. To see the 

 huge monster moving resistlessly over the great plain, the broad 

 swath going down before it, and the sacks of clean grain 

 strewn along the way from its side, made it the most impressive 

 piece of machinery I have ever seen. About 200 bushels of wheat 

 per day was a fair product for each man's day's work. 



It is by such means that the production of grain in the United 

 States has reached such great proportions, not only actually in 

 bushels, but relative to the population. The production of wheat 

 in the whole country, the several census year's crops, shows some 

 very remarkable figures; in 1849 by the methods then in use, it 

 was less than half what it is now. The figures are: 



1849, 4.3 bushels per head of whole population. 



1859, 5.5 " «« «' 



1869, 7.8 " " . " 



1879, 9. " " " 



The total product of grain in the United States the last census 

 year (1879), amounted, in round numbers, to 2,698 millions of 

 bushels, or about 55 bushels per head of the total population. 



