66 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



[Sept. 1894. 



counting wear and tear of machinery, feed of animals, wages 

 and board of men, not to exceed a dollar per acre. 



The " bonanza " method of farming in California is said to 

 have reduced the cost of cultivating an acre of wheat to half 

 what it cost under the old system, and the cost of producing a 

 bushel of wheat has been correspondingly reduced. 



The wheat-harvest extends, usually, over a period of 60 to 90 

 days. It is rare that rain falls on the wheatfields between May 

 and September. The straw is short and stands erect, curing 

 in the warm sunshine, and the heads bend over gracefully, 

 holding the grain in place firmly to the end of the season. 

 During so long a harvest one machine can cut over an 

 immense area, and a modern Calif ornian harvester is a ponderous 

 machine. It is drawn by a team consisting (according to size 

 and capacity of the machine) of 16 to 30 horses, and cuts, 

 threshes, and sacks the grain at the rate of 'about an acre 

 per horse per diem. The horses are worked eight abreast 

 in the first two or three ranks, with four or two leaders. A 

 2 6 -horse team has three ranks of eight horses each, with two 

 horses in front, and a 28-horse team has four horses leading. 

 One man drives the team, one looks after the machine, while a 

 third sews the sacks as they are filled. Thus three men dispose 

 of 25 to 30 acres — often much more — of wheat in one day. 

 Men with two or four horse waggons follow the machines at 

 proper intervals of distance and gather up the sacks and haul 

 them to the owner's warehouses on the railroad. These large 

 farms extend many miles along the roads. 



On a farm of 20,000 acres at Casselton, in North Dakota, 400 

 men are employed in harvesting and 500 to 600 in threshing. 

 Two hundred and fifty pairs of horses or mules are used, 200 

 gang ploughs, 115 self-binding reapers, and 20 steam threshers. 

 About the 1st of August the harvester is heard throughout the 

 length and breadth of the land. P^ach machine is drawn by 

 three mules or horses, and with each gang there is a superin- 

 tendent, who rides along on horseback, and directs the opera- 

 tions of the drivers. There are also mounted repairers, who 

 carry with them the tools for repairing any break or disarrange- 

 ment of the machinery, When a machine fails to work, one of 

 the repairers is instantly beside it, and, dismounting, remedies 

 the defect in a trice, unless it proves to be serious. Thus the 

 reaping goes on with the utmost order and the best effect. 

 Travelling in line together, these 115 reaping machines would 

 cut a swath one-fifth of a mile in width, and lay low 20 miles 

 of grain in a swath of that great size in the course of a single 

 day. 



In 1889, California produced over 40,000,000 bushels of 

 wheat, of which at least 30,000,000 bushels were exported. 

 This amount, added to Dakota's surplus, gives a total of 

 60,000,000 bushels of surplus wheat. 



