AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 543 



for most of the farmers of Central New-York, except in those cases 

 that require the grain to be thrashed soon after it is harvested. 

 The ordinary price for thrasliing wheat with the traveling ma- 

 chines here is five cents per bushel, the owner of the machine 

 having with it two men and four horses that the farmer must 

 feed. The farmer must provide six more horses, and from five to 

 eight men — say an average of seven. All the expenses will bring 

 up the cost of thrashing to ten cents a bushel. I have paid that 

 for thrashing a large crop. Wheat is the only crop that makes 

 so good a comparison for the machine, for ten cents is just a fair 

 price for flailing out wlieat in the winter — the thrasher binding 

 up the long straw, and feeding tlie short straw during the day to 

 the sheep, &c. 



Barley can be thrashed with a flail for three cents less than by 

 machine. Oats about the same, and yet there are cases where 

 w« use machines. Last fall we could sell our wheat for $1.50, 

 and our barley for $1.00, so we hired a machine and put the crop 

 into market, well knowing that the prices must fall before winter. 

 We appeared to save about half a dollar on each bushel, but 

 there is some draw back on that calculation. Our men being 

 thrown out of this thrashing in the winter, we have had to look 

 up work for them that we really did not want to do, and we have 

 lost our straw nearly, as the heavy rains of October and Novem- 

 ber could not be kept from going down through the stacks and 

 injuring them very much. Though our sheep have had a vast 

 amount of good hay, they are not in as good order as usual at this 

 time of the year. Most of the farmers in Onondaga raise grain, 

 make some butter and cheese, raise a few cattle, horses and sheep, 

 and intend, during the winter, to make their stock eat and trample 

 under foot the straw of tlieir grain, so as to get it into shape to 

 manure their fields. The plan of thrashing it during the winter, 

 either by flails, or stamping it out with horses on wide floors, or 

 thrashing with a very small machine, that two horses and three 

 or four men can handle, has this advantage, that all the short 

 straw is fed from day to day as it is thrashed, and thus nearly 

 every grain saved in some way. The long straw is either sold in 

 the towns or to the paper makers, or otherwise disposed of. This 



