MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS. 595 



much better to condense our grain and convert the same into 

 pork, beef, mutton, and wool. It costs about eighteen cents 

 per bushel to ship corn from here to Chicago, margin and com- 

 mission included, wliereas, if converted into jDork, it costs about 

 eight cents per bushel, and if converted into beef about five 

 cents per bushel transportation. 



MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS. 



I use Haines header to harvest my grain, but I would 

 prefer to have it cut Avith a harvester, and bound, in order to 

 stack the grain near my stock lot, where the straw is needed. 

 To save grain in good condition with a header, it must be 

 well matured, free from weeds, and stacked in narrow ricks. 



I use the Win sulky plow, an iron beam, three-horse 

 stirring plow, and a large three-horse harrow. It does not pay 

 to either plow or, harrow with one team in this country. One 

 man can just as well plow three acres per day as two, and har- 

 row twenty acres instead of ten or twelve. All that is required 

 is a proper implement and three good horses or mules. I use 

 Brown's corn planter, but the Keystone is just as good. I 

 have not tested the check rower myself, but I believe it to be 

 a success. I use the Wier cultivator. There is a certain 

 amount of machinery required on a farm, but the farmers in 

 this western country have purchased entirely too much machin- 

 ery for their own benefit. A machine is expensive, consequently 

 it should save labor ; but if there are too many in use, this 

 object is not accomplished. For instance, two farmers that 

 raise one hundred acres of small grain purchase each a grain 

 harvester of some kind, when one machine could harvest the 

 grain for both, if properly managed. Then the expenses of 

 harvesting are increased by tlie purchase of a machine not 

 needed, and in the hiring of extra help which it made necessary* 



LAND UNDER CULTIVATION. 



I cultivate two hundred acres in grain, ten in oats, twenty 

 in rye, seventy in wheat, and one hundred acres in corn. I 

 have fifty acres in timothy and blue grass for pasture, and 

 intend to seed down more. To prepare my land for grass, I 



