She BULLETIN 627, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
reducing the cost of an operation, but from the cost figures given 
below it will be seen that the principal effect of improved harvesting 
machinery has been to increase to a very large extent the amount of 
work which one man can accomplish in a day with the assistance of 
horse-labor and machines over what was formerly done by man-labor 
alone. 
For example, the average cost of cutting with a binder, as shown 
in Table V, is $1.022 per acre, and the average cost of shocking, as 
shown in Table VI. is 20.5 cents, or a total of $1.23 for the two opera- 
tions. In the Transactions of the New York State Agricultural 
Society, volume 10 (1850)$ page 550, the cost of cradling and binding 
(and the shocking was probably done at the same time) is given as 
70 cents per acre on a 20-bushel yield. In the Report of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture for 1853, page 143, the cost of cradling, bind- 
ing, and shocking an acre of wheat, where the yield was also about 
20 bushels, is given as 75 cents per acre. 
In other words, the cost of cutting, binding, and shocking wheat to- 
day, with an average yield of 16 bushels per acre. would be slightly 
less than 8 cents per bushel, whereas in the cases just mentioned it was 
a little under 4 cents per bushel. The average farm price per bushel 
for wheat during the 10 years 1906-1915 was about 87 cents (see 
United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook for 1915), so it 
will be seen that the cost of harvesting in recent years has represented 
about one-eleventh of the selling price of the crop, whereas when hand 
methods were used the cost of harvesting represented less than one- 
thirtieth of the selling price. The cost of harvesting to-day, there- 
fore, represents a greater percentage of the selling price of the crop 
than it did when the old hand methods were used. However, to-day 
two men (one shocking), with three or four horses, will cut, bind, 
and shock about eight times as much wheat as two men cutting with 
a cradle and binding by hand. It should be borne in mind, of course, 
that the price for labor at the time cradles were used was considerably 
less than at present. To make a direct comparison of the cost of 
the two methods the same price for labor should be used in both 
cases. If man labor was worth $2 per day (the figure which has been 
used in the computations herein), the cost per acre by the hand 
methods would be approximately $1.60 as against $1.23 with the 
binder, where the yield was 16 bushels per acre. 
It is also interesting to compare the amount of work done per 
day per horse with that accomplished by one man using the old hand 
methods. By Table I it will be seen that the acres cut per horse 
in one day varied from about 3 to 43 acres. To cradle, bind, and 
shock 1 acre per day where the yield was about 20 bushels was a 
fair or average day’s work for one man; a good, experienced hand 
