ECONOMY OF LABOR. 37 



chines was an immeasurable step in advance upon the old 

 methods of cutting grass. They come in at a season when 

 the work of the farm is peculiarly laborious, when labor is 

 held at hioher than the usual hio-h rate of wages, when the 

 weather is often fickle, either oppressively hot and trying to 

 the physical system, or "catchy" and lowering, and they re- 

 lieve the severest strain upon the muscles at the time of har- 

 vest. Our reapers are at the same time self-rakers. We 

 can reap and gather from fifteen to twenty acres a day in the 

 most satisfactory manner. 



MAKING AND GATHERING HAY. 



The horse hay-rake was invented at an earlier date than 

 the mowing-machine. It has been used in this country nearly 

 seventy years, and the saving by its use, sixty years ago, was 

 estimated to be the labor of six men in the same time. The 

 work to be performed in raking hay, though slow, is compara- 

 tively light. It does not require the exertion of a very great 

 amount of strength. It is just such kind of work where the 

 application of animal power becomes of the greatest advan- 

 tage, Ijecause it multiplies the efficiency of the hand many 

 times. The same thing is noticed in the use of the hand- 

 drills for sowing small seeds, the tedder for turning and 

 spreading hay, and in other similar operations. The labor of 

 a good horse-rake is equal to that of eight or ten men for the 

 same time, and from twenty to thirty acres a day can be 

 gathered by a single horse and driver, and that without ovcr- 

 cxev.ion. In the economy of labor the horse-rake must be 

 regarded as second only in importance to the mower and the 

 reaper, and is considered as essential upon the farm as the 

 plough itself. 



The tedder is another invention of still more recent date. 

 With the introduction of the mower, by which grass could be 

 cut so rapidly, and the horse-rake by which it could be gath- 

 ered more rapidly than ever before, there was still wanting 

 some means by which it could be cured proportionally quick, 

 something to complete and round out the new system, as it 

 were, to make the revolution in the process of hay-making en- 

 tire. Various forms of the tedder had been patented and 

 used in England, but they were too heavy and cumbersome 



