270 



Tahle allowing the average prices per acre of harvesting and stacking wheat and haij, and per 

 bushel of harvesting wheat and oats, and of husking and cribbing, and of shelling corn. 



In comparison with these prices those of former i^eriods are some- 

 what higher. In the grain States the decline is quite uniform with 

 that of other labor. In those States where the area in cereals is small 

 the averages are less uniform, and perhaps less reliable, from the smaller 

 number of returns and the greater difficulty in fixing precisely county 

 averages. 



In the West, the cost of harvesting and stacking wheat varies little 

 in most of the States from $3 per acre, the highest being in Isebraska 

 and Minnesota, where wheat-growing may be said to be a specialty, and 

 where the area is practically all spring- wheat, and the period of har- 

 vesting short and competition for harvest-labor strong. Wisconsin, 

 also a spring-wheat State, stands nest in order. 



The price per acre for cutting and curing hay is proportionately lower 

 in most of the States. In the States in which machines are not in gen- 

 eral use, as in the South, aud even in Xew England, it is far more diffi- 



