CHAPTER XI 

 THE HORSE 



281. Substitution of Horse Power for Man Power. In 



1830, it required an average of three hours of time for 

 each bushel of wheat grown; in 1896 it required ten min- 

 utes. In 1850 it took four and one-half hours to grow, 

 harvest and shell a bushel of corn; in 1899, it required 

 forty-one minutes. 1 This saving of time has been due to 

 the substitution of machinery drawn by horses for human 

 labor. According to the last census (1900), we had twenty- 

 one million horses in the United States, or one horse 

 to each four persons. In Great Britain there is one 

 horse to twenty-six persons; in France, one to ten; in 

 Germany, one to thirteen. 



In America, we have gone farthest in the substitution 

 of brute force for human energy. Human labor is the 

 most expensive of all labor, even if the person be a slave. 

 One horse, properly directed can do the work of ten men, 

 while his "board and room" on the farm cost about half 

 as much as that of one man. The farm boy who drives 

 a good four-horse team to a gang-plow is doing as much 

 work as if the horses were replaced by forty men. In the 

 West, the farmer is no longer content to use a single 

 team in his farm operations when it is possible to use 

 larger numbers. The four-horse gang-plow and four- 

 horse harrow have rapidly replaced the two-horse machines. 



Yearbook United States Department of Agriculture, 1897, page 600 



(301) 



