io American Economic Association [808 



The farm machines in use in the Central States are 

 less massive and of a more varied nature and yet, in the 

 rate of progress which they show, are no less wonderful 

 than those above described. Instead of a hoe for cover- 

 ing seed-corn, dropped by hand, the farmer now uses a 

 check-row planter drawn by horses and depositing the 

 seed at regular intervals so that the rows may be culti- 

 vated with equal facility either in the direction of the 

 planting or across. As a means of cultivating the corn, 

 hoes are now laid aside, and in their stead the farmer 

 quite commonly uses a riding plow. Steam power corn- 

 huskers and corn-shellers are found. Instead of the old 

 hand-method of shelling corn by scraping the ears 

 against the handle of a frying pan or the blade of a 

 shovel, by which means hardly six bushels could be 

 shelled in a day, the farmer may now have his corn 

 shelled at the rate of a bushel a minute and the machine 

 which does the work will also " carry off the cobs to a 

 pile or into a wagon, and deliver the corn into sacks." 1 



Mowing machines, horse hay-rakes, tedders, and 

 stackers have revolutionized the work of making hay. 

 It formerly required eleven hours of man-labor to cut 

 and cure a ton of hay. Now the same work may be 

 done in one hour and 39 minutes ; while the cost for the 

 required man-labor has been decreased from 83^ to 

 i6j^ cents per ton. 2 Potato planters and diggers, feed 

 choppers and grinders, manure spreaders, and ditch- 

 digging machines are only a few of many labor-saving 

 devices now common on the farms in the Central States. 

 There is hardly a phase of farm work that has not been 

 essentially changed by the introduction of some new 

 implement or machine. 



1 Department of Agriculture, Year Book ( 1899), pp. 316-318 and 332. 



2 Department of Agriculture, Year Book (1899), p. 332. 



