STANDARD DAY S WORK IN CENTRA!. ILLINOIS. 



19 



hauled depends almost entively upon the, oi-oimd covered by the 

 picker. 



Table XVIII shows an average day's work for 40 of these ma- 

 chines drawn by 5 horses, and for 20 machines drawn by horses. 

 The addition of the sixth horse apparently results in an increase of 

 only about three-tenths of an acre per day. 



Table XVIII. — Huskimj corn from the standing .'italics with a mechonioal 



picker. 



Number 

 of horses. 



Numl)er of 

 reports. 



Amount husked per 



(lay. 



5 

 6 



40 

 20 



Bushels. 

 351 



Acres. 

 G.8 

 7.1 



Twenty-six of the 40 men who report the use of five horses on the 

 picker used two men and teams for hauling to the crib, making a 

 total crew of three men and nine horses. Their average performance 

 was 333 bushels per day, or 111 bushels per day per man employed, 

 and 37 bushels per horse. As compared with husking by hand as 

 given in Table XVII, the mechanical picker, if used with a crew of 

 this size, increases the efficiency of each man about 35 per cent but de- 

 creases the efficiency of the horse labor by about 10 per cent. The 

 work for the men with the mechanical picker is not nearly so heavy 

 and does not require so much skill as does husking by hand, while 

 the work of the horses is a great deal heavier. 



SEEDING GRAIN. 



Regardless of the fact that numerous experiments have shown that 

 oats which are drilled give better yields under most Corn Belt condi- 

 tions than do those which are sown broadcast,^ a large majority of 

 the farmers still broadcast their oats, using end-gate seeders at- 

 tached to the box of an ordinary wagon for this work. No small 

 grain except oats is raised on most of the farms and only about 25 

 per cent of the farmers reporting have considered it worth while to 

 buy grain drills. 



END-GATE SEEDER. 



The width of cast of these seeders as reported by the users varies 

 from under 20 to over 40 feet. The majority of the farmei's, however, 

 reported using seeders which seeded strips of from 28 to 37 feet on 

 each trip across the field. (See Table XIX.) 



^ See Bulletin No. 136, University of Illinois Experiment Station, " Methods of Seeding 

 Oats, Drilling, and Broadcasting." Also Farmers' Bulletin 892, "Spring Oat Production." 



