STEAM IN AGRICULTURE. 245 



have them when those months have transpired. If 

 he could replace those animals by a machine which, 

 when its season of usefulness was over, could be 

 cleaned, oiled, and put away under a tight roof until 

 next seeding-time, the saving alike of cost and trouble 

 would be very considerable. 



When our American reapers first challenged atten- 

 tion in Great Britain, the general skepticism as to 

 their efficiency was counteracted by the suggestion 

 that, even though reaping by machinery should prove 

 more expensive than reaping by hand, the ability to 

 cut and save the grain-crop more rapidly than hith- 

 erto would overbalance that enhancement of cost. In 

 the British Isles, day after day of chilling wind and 

 rain is often encountered in harvest-time : the stand- 

 ing "Wheat or Oats or Barley becoming draggled, or 

 lodged, or beaten out, while the owner impatiently 

 awaits the recurrence of sunny days. When these at 

 length arrive, he is anxious to harvest many acres at 

 once, since his Grain is wasting and he kno\vs not 

 how soon cloud and tempest may again be his por- 

 tion. But all his neighbors are in like predicament 

 with himself, and all equally intent on hurrying the 

 harvest ; so that little extra help is attainable. If now 

 the aid of a machine may be commanded, which will 

 cut 15 or 20 acres per day, he cares less how much 

 that work will cost than how soon it can be effected. 

 Hence, even though cutting by horse-power had 

 proved more costly than cutting by hand, it would 

 still have been welcome. 



