FARM MANAGEMENT 91 



Saving in the Cost of Producing Crops. The potential saving 

 in the cost of human labor on account of improved implements, ma- 

 chines, and processes, at the rate per bushel or ton, as the case may 

 be, has been computed for seven of the principal crops of 1899 ; the 

 comparison is between the old-time methods of production, in which 

 hand labor was assisted only by the comparatively rude and in- 

 efficient implements of the day and the present time, when hand 

 labor has not only the assistance of highly efficient and perfected 

 implements and machines, but has been considerably displaced by 

 them. The saving in the cost of human labor in cents, per unit of 

 product, permits a very forcible statement of its equivalent in money 

 by means of a computation consisting of the multiplication of the 

 saving per unit into the crop of 1899. The result expresses the 

 potential labor saving in the production of seven crops of that year, 

 and is not an aggregate of the saving of human labor in the cost of 

 producing the crops for all the years between the earlier and the 

 later ones, during which time this economizing and displacement 

 of human labor has taken place. In the case of the crop of corn, the 

 money measure of the saving of human labor required to produce 

 it in 1899 in the most available economic manner, as compared 

 with its production in the old-time manner, was $523,276,642 ; 

 wheat, $79,194,867; oats, $52,866,200; rye, $1,408,950; barley, $7,- 

 323,480 ; white potatoes, $7,366,820 ; hay, $10,034,868. 



The total potential saving in the cost of human labor for these 

 seven crops of 1899, owing to the possible utilization of the imple- 

 ments, machines, and methods of the present time, in place of the 

 old-time manner of production, reaches the stupendous amount of 

 $681,471,827 for this one year. 



From 1855 to 1894 the time of human labor required to pro- 

 duce 1 bushel of corn on an average declined from four hours and 

 thirty-four minutes to forty-one minutes. This was because inven- 

 tors had given to the farmers of 1894 the gang plow, the disk har- 

 row, the corn planter drawn by horses, and the four-section harrow 

 for pulverizing the top soil; because they had given to the farmer 

 the self-binder drawn by horses to cut the stalks and bind them; a 

 machine for removing the husks from the ears and in the same 

 operation for cutting the husks, stalks, and blades for feeding, the 

 power being supplied by a steam engine; because they had given 

 to the farmer a marvelous corn sheller, operated by steam and shell- 

 ing 1 bushel of corn per minute instead of the old way of corn shell- 

 ing in which the labor of one man was required for one hundred 

 minutes to do the same work. 



In the matter of wheat production, 1894 being compared with 

 1830, the required human labor declined from three hours and three 

 minutes to ten minutes. The heavy, clumsy plow of 1830 had given 

 way to the disk plow that both plowed and pulverized the soil in the 

 same operation ; hand sowing had been displaced by the mechanical 

 seeder drawn by horses; the cradling and thrashing with flails and 

 hand winnowing, had given way to reaping, thrashing, and sacking 

 with the combined reaper and thrasher drawn by horses. 



