222 
Harvesting Corn. 
halfpenny per hundred sheaves for each hand they pass through 
until finally laid on the stack ; this provides for pitching, loading, 
unloading, handing to stacker, and stacking, besides a man 
■who sees that the stack is going up all right, and gets on the 
platform to repitch when the stack gets too high for the man on 
<"art or waggon to reach the top ; this gives ?>d. a hundred sheaves 
as the expense of manual labour in carting and stacking ; the 
cost of horses and drivers depends on the distance of the stack 
from the field. A horse will go and return a quarter of a mile 
in ten minutes (at the rate of three miles an hour) ; and two 
loaders and two pitchers will load 240 sheaves in the same time ; 
therefore for every quarter of a mile between the field and stack, 
an extra horse, cart, and boy will be required ; of course inter- 
mediate distances must be met, either by more horses going more 
slowly, or fewer going faster. Inasmuch as expedition (when the 
crop is fit) is of the utmost importance, and three horses and 
carts or waggons are the smallest number that can insure the 
harvest-men against loss of time, — the minimum cost for horse- 
labour with the drivers will be about two-pence .per hundred 
sheaves, and for every additional quarter of a mile in distance 
two-thirds of a penny. 
A considerable saving of cartage will obviously be effected if 
for the central farm-steading, which may be called the Scotch 
plan, there be substituted that of having several field barns. 
This system has been introduced into England, together with 
the moveable steam-threshing machines, which have in many parts 
quite superseded the old method, because they can thresh the corn 
in less time than was once required to put it into the barn. 
Economy in thatching is another point for consideration. 
This item of expenditure becomes more costly as the bulk of the 
straw is increased by the use of other implements than the sickle, 
as the size of the stacks is diminished, as the slope of the top or 
roof is increased, and as the stacks are allowed to increase in size 
as they go upwards, which shape also involves an increase of 
labour, because a greater portion of the sheaves have then to be 
thrown up above the level of the carts. 
The stacks, therefore, should be made of as large a size as cir- 
cumstances will permit, and this size will be ruled by the number 
of sheaves which can be threshed in a day, which will commonly 
be 8000, or the produce of about 10 acres, yielding 40 quarters 
of wheat ; at all events the size of the stacks should be so regu- 
lated that one, two, three, or more, should constitute a day's 
thrashing.* 
* Where small stacks are thought desirable, they should be so placed in pairs 
that the two may be threshed without moving the machine and engine, and thus 
sacrificing nearly an hour of work.— P. H. F. 
