336 Wear and Tear of Agricultural Steam-Erigincs. 
The number of men and lads employed was 19 ; they had a 
short distance to carry the straw : 12 cwt. of steam-coal were 
used. 
On the first day we threshed 8 qrs. of barley an hour, having- 
five men on the stack and two on the stage to supply the feeder, 
and the machine could certainly have borne faster feeding if the 
men on the stack could have delivered the straw faster. The 
corn, in a day of ten hours, would have amounted to 80 qrs., 
the straw and cavings to tons, and the chaff to 1 ton 1 cv, t. 
The crop was only 5 qrs. per acre, and the straw long and 
coarse. 
The number of hands employed, including two lads, was 
twenty-one. The costs, with these maximum results, adopting- 
our former calculation, would be Is. per qr. for the barley and 
9^6?. per qr. for the wheat. 
But we have not yet stated the whole of the expenses of 
threshing in the field, which include the cost of removal, of 
clearing up, and of thatching the stack ; and for purposes of com- 
parison with threshing Ijy flail we ought also to bring the straw 
to the barn or yard. Removals may probably take five horses 
and one man a quarter of a day on the average every time the 
machine is used, and cost say ?>s. Aid. ; clearing up, one horse 
and a boy, 3s. 4fZ. ; thatching, at Qd. per square, 4s. ; for 15 tons 
of straw, a fair day's threshing, carting home the same quantity 
of straw, 7s. 6(/. These expenses of course vary with the 
site of the stack, the convenience or otherwise of storing, and 
tlie care taken of the straw, and the attention or neglect of neat- 
ness in the stack-yard ; on the whole we believe them to be no 
jnore than the average. It will be seen that they add 18s. 2d. 
to the expenses of a day's threshing, or Ah per qr. at 48 qrs. per 
day, to the cost of separating the grain from the straw and chaff 
and of carrying each to the Imrn. 
Portable straw elevators may be referred to as a means of 
assistance in certain cases, though their price and cost of 
removal precludes their being used with economy where 
labourers can be obtained at 2s. per day. The cost of one to 
deliver straight is about 50/., or to deliver at any angle, about 
1)0/., varying according to length. Their sale has been almost 
entirely confined to districts where labourers are scarce.* 
* I do not concur in these remarks. I first bought one straw-elevator to accom- 
pany one of my machines, and found it so useful and so nmcli approved, that I 
have since purchased another ; but the price charged seems to nie too high for so 
simple a machine. Messrs. Kansome's new iron elevator, which packs into the 
iiireshing-machine, will probably act very well in careful hands, but hirers are 
:oo often hasty and unskilful. — P. H. F. 
