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horse-forks to feed it, 

 and we were told, 

 threshed 800 to 1,000 

 bushels of wheat and 

 put in bags per day. 

 These bags remain in 

 the open field piled up 

 in rows until taken away 

 by teams to the railroad 

 stations. We saw acres 

 of bags piled up five 

 bags high awaiting ship 

 ment. On many of the 

 large farms, the plow 

 ing is done by gang- 

 plows, six abreast, and 

 drawn by ten or twelve 

 horses. A sower is at 

 tached to the plow, and 

 in this way nine or ten 

 acres of grain may be 

 put in the ground in a 

 day. And have yo u 

 ever thought of the 

 importance of labor- 

 saving machines, as 

 applied to the arts of 

 husbandry ? Without 

 the modern inventions, 

 the crops of our coun 

 try could not be har 

 vested, its prosperity 

 would be paralyzed, 

 and a partial famine 

 would soon ensue. How 

 wonderful the improve 

 ments in our own day ! 

 Some of us remember 

 the old wooden plow of 

 our boyhood, for which 

 we often drove the team 

 afield, and which with 

 much hard labor could 

 be made to 

 turn the f ur- 

 rows for 

 only about 

 one acre per 

 day. Com- 

 pare this 

 with the 



THE AMERICAN FARMER 



