4 



MANAGEMENT AND BREEDING OF HORSES 



crowded streets only a few horses are hitched together, 

 in this case, to assist a single man; but the horses are 

 large and strong. A single team, consisting of two 

 horses, is able to move a load of four to ten tons over 

 paved streets — a load equal to that carried by a freight 

 car in the early days of steam railways. 



The horse cheapens production. — In 1830, it required 

 an average of three hours and three minutes of human 

 labor for each bushel of wheat grown ; in 1896 it required 



FIG. 4.— THREE GENERATIONS OF THE REAPER 



ten minutes. In 1855 it required an average of four hours 

 and .thirty-four minutes to grow, harvest and shell one 

 bushel of corn ; in 1894 it required 41 minutes.* The 

 heavy, clumsy plow of 1830 has given way to more 

 modern implements, such as the gang plow, disk plow, 

 disk harrow and the like, which both plow and pulverize 

 the soil in the same operation. Hand sowing has been 

 displaced by the mechanical seeder drawn by horses. 

 Hand harvesting with knife and peg, cradling and thrash- 

 ing with flail has given way to reaping, thrashing and 



♦Yearbook, United States Department of Agriculture, 1897, page 600, 



