68 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



and also the driver. Some special device should be furnished 

 for road work. 



At the start off we contracted to plow for $3.50 per acre and 

 harrow for $1.50 per acre, plus the board of operator. July 1 

 the price was changed to $5 per acre for plowing and $2 per 

 acre for harrowing (this meant going over the field with a 

 wheel harrow once, on a half lap). 



The threshers were operated by the State, hitching them up 

 with a tractor for power. This part of the work was very 

 successful. Oats were threshed at 10 cents per bushel and all 

 other grain at 15 cents per bushel. Nearly all the other ma- 

 chinery, such as harvesters, binders and planters, was leased 

 to parties who agreed to do all the work possible in their 

 vicinity and at a reasonable price. We have reason to believe 

 that this plan worked out very well. The one hay baler was 

 operated by the State. A number of requests for more hay 

 balers have been received, showing a demand especially for 

 machines to bale straw after grain has been threshed. 



Some of the Stumbling Blocks. 



The act authorizing this work was approved March 23, 1918. 

 The problem of purchasing machinery and assembling it at 

 different points throughout the State in time for spring work 

 was the first problem we had to contend with. This was so 

 very difficult on account of conditions of transportation that 

 the project was fully a month late in getting under way, and 

 resulted not only in the loss to the farmers of the use of the 

 machinery at a vital time, but in a loss to the Board of a lot 

 of good work. Many of the farmers, unable to wait, plowed 

 and fitted their better fields, and later, when the machinery was 

 ready to go to work, we had much undesirable work to do. 



The next problem which we had to contend with the whole 

 season was that of help. There was no supply of experienced 

 tractor drivers to draw from, and we had to pick up our men 

 wherever we could, taking some having farm experience, some 

 a very little machine experience, and some having neither. 

 Some of our drivers were called in the draft after we had gotten 

 them where they could do good work. This, as has been said 



