202 
On the Moveable Steam- Engine. 
and barley, or 355. a clay for tlie hire of engine and maclilne, 
Avith engineman and feeder ; but the price per day has given way 
to 32s., unless elevators are furnished, when the old charge of 35s. 
is maintained. These elevators dispense with the services of 2 
men (or 3 when the straw-stack is high), and are, therefore, well 
worth the extra charge of 3s. Reaped wheat, without the use of 
elevators, would now l)e threshed at about 10^/. a quarter. Oats 
are not much grown in my district : they are charged at the 
same rate as other corn, or threshed by the day. We sometimes 
undertake to furnish extra labour, besides the engineman and 
feeder, at the charge of Is. 6rf. per quarter. In this case, the 
work is thus distributed : the engine-owner finds, besides the use 
of the elevators, 
2 hands for corn-stack. 
1 lad to cut bands for feeder. 
1 man to tend sacks and clear away cavings. 
The hirer will still provide labour 
For supply of water and coals. 
For loading carts with corn and driving away. 
For stacking straAV. 
For removing cavings, colder, or short stuff. 
This arrangement sometimes suits holders of small occupations ; 
but, to the machine-owner, a short job, even at a higher rate of 
pay, is not so remunerative as a good bout of threshing on a large 
farm. It will be observed that these calculations are made for 
threshing in the field, such being our general practice, based on 
the following reasons. 
In the case of wheat, we now set little store by the chaff, and 
can always easily preserve as large a portion of it as we care to 
mix with cut straw for the cart-horses ; unless, therefore, we cart 
straight from the field into the barn, for early threshing on a wet 
day in harvest, the wheat is mostly threshed where it is stacked in 
the field, to save double handling of the sheaves. 
The labour of the yardman and odd horse at odd times, in 
taking the litter home to the yard, is but little increased in con- 
sequence of threshing in the field, and that increase is but little 
felt. The loss occasioned by the dropping of the stray ears and 
locks of corn, from the loads when in progress from the stack to 
the barn, is fully equivalent to the waste arising from grain shed 
round the threshing-machine, where a small measure of grain 
would,' if scattered, make a great show. 
Some old harvest-waggons, which the hilly nature of the farm 
compels me to retain in use, are very serviceable for receiving' 
and conveying home the cavings or short stuff derived from the 
barley for the use of the stock, nor are they to be despised as. 
