290 AGRICULTURE 



does the mower or reaper. The cost of wages and board for 

 extra farm hands is thus saved. Thousands of dollars are paid 

 in wages every year for work that could be done with less expense 

 and trouble by the use of machinery. Moreover, the farmer who 

 has his laborer in the shed is sure of getting it in the field when it 

 is needed. This is not always the case when he has to depend on 

 hiring workmen. 



Tools save Time. Good tools do work more rapidly than it 

 can be done by hand. Thus they save time, and nowhere is it 



truer than on the farm that time 

 is money. Work done at the 

 right time is the work that pays. 

 The soil needs to be stirred when 

 A USEFUL HARROW MADE OF HEAVY ^ is m proper condition; in a few 

 PLANK days or hours, it may be too wet 



or too dry. Crops need to be cultivated and harvested and housed 

 at the right time; if this be not done, they may be injured or 

 lost. 



With the tools in use in*i83o it took a man ten hours and twenty- 

 five minutes to plow, harrow, and sow with wheat one acre of land ; 

 with the combined steam gang- plow, harrow, and seeder now in use, 

 it takes forty-five minutes to do the same work. In 1830 to reap 

 that acre of wheat with the cradle and thresh it with the flail took a 

 man twenty-three hours and twenty minutes; with the steam har- 

 vester seven men can in nine minutes cut and thresh the same 

 amount of grain and put it in bags ready for the mill. 



Tools save Money. By saving labor and time, improved tools 

 reduce the cost of producing a crop. The farmers of the West 

 have taken advantage of this fact. With little labor and at the least 

 possible cost, they raise large crops of grain. Their level land, 

 free from stumps and stones, is well adapted to the use of ma- 



