56 OUE FAEM CEOPS. 



well farmed districts at that time, and the records of 

 our own period teem with inventions and attempts, more 

 or less successful, to scheme similar mechanical substitutes 

 for hand labour in our harvest fields. This desirable end, 

 too, had, for some years past, been achieved in the north, 1 

 but its fame had been confined to its immediate locality, 

 and had never reached the south. 



Since 1851 the reaping machine has been tested in each 

 successive harvest, and received certain improvements, and 

 may now fairly be admitted as a necessary portion of the 

 mechanical force on every well-conducted farm. It is 

 beyond my province here to discuss the relative merits of 

 the various forms of machines now before the public. All 

 have a claim upon a farmer's notice. Two horses and a 

 driver are usually required to work the machine, which, 

 under ordinary circumstances, will average 10 acres per day. 

 This quantity of grain will require about ten labourers to 

 bind and stook, so that the cost of harvesting a 10-acre 

 field by the reaping machine cannot be reckoned at less 

 than 35s., or at the rate of 3s. 6d. per acre. 



These points are surely worth our more general con- 

 sideration. By the use of the reaping machine we not 

 only effect a saving of something like 60 to 70 per cent, 

 on the cost of harvesting, but we get it over in far less 

 time, with only half the number of hands, and, withal, 

 do the work far better than it is done.by the usual mode 

 of fagging or reaping. The only obstacles to the use of 

 the reaper are those met with in bad farming districts, as 

 surface weeds, narrow high-backed lands, water furrows, 

 small irregular-shaped fields, &c. Where these exist the 

 machine has but little chance of success. The Romans 

 found they could only work them where " the fields were 

 large and their surface level/' 



Generally speaking the various operations of the harvest 



1 By Patrick Bell, of Inchmichael, in 1828. 



