HOW THEY DO, OUT WEST. 261 



two horse-forks to feed it, and, we were told, threshed 800 to 

 1,000 bushels of wheat and put in bags per day. Tliese bags 

 remain in the open field piled up in rows until taken away by 

 teams to the railroad stations. We saw acres of bags piled up 

 five bags high awaiting shipment. On many of the large farms 

 the ploughing is done by gang ploughs, six abreast, and drawn 

 by ten or twelve horses. A sower is attached to the plough, 

 and in this way nine or ten acres of grain may be put in the 

 ground in a day. And have you ever thought, my friends, of 

 the importance of labor-saving machines as applied to the arts 

 of husbandry. Without the modern inventions the crops of our 

 country could not be harvested, its prosperity would be para- 

 lyzed and a partial famine would soon ensue. How wonderful 

 the improvements in our own day ! Some of us remember the 

 old wooden plough of our boyhood. Compare this with the 

 modern iron plough suited to all soils and situations, and still 

 more marvellous, the steam plough, moving like a thing of life 

 across the broad prairie, turning up its numerous furrows at once, 

 and leaving behind it a broad wake like that of a majestic ship ! 

 Compare the old scythe and sickle of our fathers, slowly and 

 tediously gathering up their crops, with our mowing and reap- 

 ing machines, cutting down their ten to twenty acres per day ! 

 Aye, or go with me to those vast western valleys, look down 

 that broad expanse, see those two hundred reaping machines, 

 followed by a thousand men, women and children, binding up 

 the golden sheaves at the rate of two hundred acres per hour. 

 Look at these improvements, and I think you will agree with 

 me tliat we live in an age of remarkable invention and progress. 

 Nothing surprises the traveller more than the immense fields of 

 wheat seen on the sides of the railroad. Think of riding for 

 hours through fields of wheat whose breadth extends miles 

 beyond your vision, and you will have some idea of the golden 

 harvest of those ocean-like plateaus of grain that abound in 

 California. 



The supply of culinary vegetables, as seen in the markets of 

 San Francisco and other cities, is very abundant and of excellent 

 quality. What surprises visitors from the East is to find such 

 articles as celery in the market all summer. When we arrived, 

 on the 20th of June, celery, cauliflowers, melons and marrow 

 squashes of famous size were on the stands in the market. 



