Harvestirif/ Corn. 
221 
layina: in pc-vrcels ready for tying into slieaves. Our standard 
crop when thus harvested will produce about 810 sheaves, which 
for tying and shocking will cost AhL per hundred, or 3.9. per 
acre ; making, with 35. for cutting, a total cost of G.v. per ac:re. 
Bell's, Burgess and Key's, Lord Kinnaird's, Smith of Dean- 
ston, and Crosskill's, are all swathe-delivery or mowing-machines, 
which ought to take a wide cut, or the swathe will be so thin 
that the cost of gathering runs away with much of the saving- 
effected in cutting.* 
The differences to be found in the reports of various persons 
who have used these machines, have arisen chiefly from the 
different management of their respective drivers, upon which 
both the increase in bulk of the straw cut, and in the cost of 
gathering and tying has depended. Having used these machines 
more or less during the past nine years, I will now give an estimate 
of their expenses for a swathe of about five feet in width. These 
machines, with extras and carriage, will cost about 50Z. ; if we 
allow 10/. (or 20 per cent, on the prime cost) for wear and tear 
and for repairs, and assume that 150 acres is the extent which 
each will cut in an average season, — then lOZ. distributed over 150 
acres will give Is. Ad. per acre as the charge for the use of the 
implement ; to this must be added the cost of men and horses. 
Now 4 horses at 3s. per day as before, and one man at 4s. 
including beer, making together 16s., will cut 10 acres a day, so 
that the charge per acre for men and horses will come to Is. Id., 
and the entire cost of cutting to 2s. lid. The number of sheaves 
on our standard crop will be about 850, which for gathering, 
tying, and shocking, at 7d. per hundred, cost about 5s. per acre, 
with about 3s. for cutting ; about 8s. per acre in all. For upwards 
of twenty years I have paid for cutting and carting my crops at 
per hundred sheaves, finding this the best criterion to go by, as 
the immense difference in the bulk of straw produced by dif- 
ference of soils, as well as by high or low farming, renders any 
other standard defective. 
Coming next to the carting, I have always had this done at a 
• From my experience in this description of machine, which began in 1834, 
I have come to the conclusion that the power is principally absorbed in driving 
the machinery and dividing the corn to be cut from that left standing, so that 
little extra force would be required for taking a foot or two more in width ; I have, 
therefore, urged on the makers the expediency of increasing the width, especially 
in the machines which are propelled, which, if made with an eight feet wide cut, 
would give plenty of room for three horses working abreast. As we increase the 
width of swathe, we at the same time reduce the distance to be travelled by the 
horses in cutting, and the workmen in gathering and tying up ; with a four feet 
width of cut the horses must travel 2 -['g miles per acre, and the binders the same ; 
while with an eight foot width of cut the distance is only li,'^ mile, or half the 
distance, which will lower the expense of gathering and binding by at least Id. 
per 100 sheaves. 
