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minutes to haul the stalks required to produce a bushel of corn to a 

 barn and cut them into fodder, and the time, as at present, when 

 17% minutes are sufficient to haul the same stalks to a husker and, 

 by the use of a machine operated by steam, to husk the corn and at 

 the same time cut the stalks into fodder; and there was a transition 

 from one agricultural age to another when a man ceased to expend 

 100 minutes of labor in shelling corn by hand, and employed a 

 steam sheller by which a bushel of corn is shelled in a minute and 

 a half. When farmers reaped their wheat with sickles and bound 

 the straw by hand, hauled the sheaves to the barn and thrashed the 

 grain with flails, these operations, applied to 1 bushel of wheat, re- 

 quired the labor of one man for 160 minutes, whereas this work is 

 now done, by the use of a combined reaper and thrasher operated 

 by steam, with 4 minutes of human labor. 



Cultivation of Flax. The lack of certain kinds of improved 

 labor saving machinery has proved a serious drawback. Much has 

 been written about flax-pulling machines, but it can not be said that 

 invention in this direction has as yet been successful. The pulling 

 of flax is essential to the production of proper spinning fiber. It is 

 one of the expensive operations of the industry and a kind of labor 

 that American farmers are averse to performing. Moreover, pulling 

 flax is one of the foreign practices which many of our adopted farmer 

 citizens leave behind them when they come to this country, many 

 of them being even more averse to performing such labor than is 

 the native American. The necessity, therefore, for a machine flax 

 puller should be fully appreciated, and the need of an improved 

 thrasher to remove the seed without injury to the straw is almost as 

 urgent. A practical machine scutcher is another desideratum, for 

 the fact remains that notwithstanding the many inventions of such 

 machines that have been brought to public notice none have been 

 successful. 



Hemp. In some sections hemp is cut with self-rake reapers or 

 mowing machines, but in Kentucky, one of the great hemp-growing 

 States, most of the hemp is still cut by hand with the primitive reap- 

 ing knife or hemp-cutter, which is something between a corn cutter 

 and a bush scythe. An experienced hand with a reaping knife will 

 cut about one-half acre per day. With a sweep-rake reaper, under 

 favorable conditions, from 5 to 7 acres may be cut in a day, and with 

 a mowing machine, 7 to 10 acres. Hemp does not lodge like ^rain 

 or heavy clover, but on windy days it is impossible to cut with either 

 reaper or mower in the direction that the wind is blowing, for instead 

 of falling back of the cutting bar the stalks drop down between the 

 guards, where they are repeatedly cut off. The heavy, green, woody 

 stalks, one-eighth to one-half inch in diameter and 8 to 14 feet tall, 

 are much more difficult to handle than grass or grain, and they cause 

 a much greater strain on the machine. Ordinary grain reapers are 

 not entirely satisfactory for harvesting hemp ; they are rarely strong 

 enough. The experience of those who have used reapers indicates 

 that a successful hemp harvesting machine of the self-rake type 

 should be made especially strong, having a cutting bar not more 



