UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 627 



Contribution from Office of Farm Management 

 W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief 





S&&"~&*rt~ 



Washington, D. C. 



February 13, 1918 



COST OF HARVESTING WHEAT BY DIFFERENT 



METHODS. 



By Arnold P. Yerkes, Assistant Agriculturist, and L. M. Church, Assistant in 



Farm Accounting. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

 Development of wheat-harvesting methods. 1 



The binder 3" 



Shooting 11 



Comparison of costs — old methods vs. nev.-.. n 



Stacking 13 



Headers 15 



Combines 18 



DEVELOPMENT OF WHEAT-HARVESTING METHODS. 



Within the memory of men now living, the entire wheat crop of 

 this country was cut with cradles, bound by hand, and thrashed with 

 flails, crude thrashing machines, or tramped out b}^ animals drawing 

 spiked rollers. The cost of harvesting and thrashing wheat by such 

 means was naturally high, usually consuming one-fifth of the value 

 of the crop. 1 But the time required to do the work when such 

 methods were used was even more important than the expense in 

 volved, as it increased the danger of loss from storms to a great ex- 

 tent, and demanded a large number of hands to harvest even a limited 

 acreage within the season available. It was necessary to start cutting 

 at the earliest possible moment, selecting those parts of the *ield 

 where the grain ripened first, in order to insure completing the 

 harvest before heavy losses occurred from shattering the over-ripe 

 grain. Two acres was considered a fair day's work for a man 

 in cradling wheat, and another hand would be kept busy bind- 

 ing and shocking the wheat cut by one cradler. It is obvious that 

 the acreage of wheat that could be raised per farm under such con- 

 ditions was very limited because of the large amount of hand-labor 

 involved. 



J Tenth Census of the D. S. (1880), Vol. Ill, p. 529. 

 15472*— 18— Bull. 627 1 



