422 
Farmers^ Accounts. 
sacked up. About 130 bushels of seed may be thus threshed and 
cleaned in the course of a good day's work. If the seed is not 
cleaned at the time, there is an excessive amount of labour involved 
in bagging up and carting home, for, after the pods are separated, a 
sack (of 16 pecks) would only contain about 5 pecks of seed. 
About 25 hands all told are required for the en tii-e operation, and 
to those unaccustomed to the process it is surprising how rapidly 
and systematically it is done. It compares very favourably with 
the leisurely manner in which most of the work on the farm is 
carried out. A slightly different process is sometimes contrived on 
the cloths, when the wads, instead of being straight, are made 
horse-shoe shape, and the seed is worked into the centre. Tlie 
riddling goes on here also, and the seed is worked towards the heel 
of the shoe, finally passing out through the winnower, to be then 
bagged up. 
Mangel-seed is rather more expensive to cut, costing from Ss. to 
lOs. per acre. It is cut when a brown shade has spread over the 
plant, but it cannot be left until the whole of the plant dies down ; 
in fact, the plant has to be killed. The crop is not fit to cut until 
September, and occasionally until October. It is cut with a fagging- 
hook, and tied and shocked like wheat. After standing for some 
few weeks it is stacked in narrow stacks, to prevent its heating, and 
is threshed out by the steam threshing machine. 
The price paid for the seed of root-crops has rendered its growth 
unpopular, for, with the risks which attend it at all stages, it is 
found to be a precarious enterprise. Some idea of the hazardous 
nature of the crop may be gathered from the fact that insurance 
companies, which insure against damage from hail, charge 15s. per 
acre for turnip-seed and only 4f/. for wheat. The low price of 
wheat induced many new growers to take up the growing of seeds, 
with the result that the price now paid is less than two-thirds of 
what it was a few years ago. If wheat should maintain the 
price it reached in May of this year, it is very unlikely that 
farmers will be found to grow seed of root-crops at the present 
prices. AVheat-growing is more reliable, and at current quotations 
more profitable. 
W. J. Malden. 
FARMERS' ACCOUNTS. 
The question of technical education for farmers now being con- 
sidered and discussed is no doubt an important one, as scientific 
training and moi'e complete technical knowledge are necessary to 
enaVile farmers to meet the altered state of prices brought about by 
foreign competition. 
The ground-work of improved education should bo the science 
of arithmetic, now taught in every board school. The farmer 
