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chines cannot be too highly appreciated ; all who have tried swinging a 
cradle in stout grain during the hot days of July, can testify to the hard¬ 
ness of the task as far exceeding that of following a reaper and binding 
the grain. It requires six men to bind and set up the grain as fast as it 
is cut by a reaper. The expense of harvesting is larger, the cost of a 
reaper being from $125 to $150 ; but the ease and rapidity with which 
it is done, and the unlimited extent that a farmer can enter into grain 
raising are considerations which overbalance the costs. 
The prairies are better adapted to growing grain than raising stock ; 
on the most of them there is a great lack of water, and often it is found 
only at a great depth below the surface. In such localities, the cheapest 
way that a farmer can supply his cattle with water is to construct capa¬ 
cious cisterns around his buildings and put in them chain pumps. The 
task then will be light compared with that of drawing water from deep 
wells ; and pure rain water is just as good for stock to drink as any other. 
Where the situation of the land will admit, I know of no good reason 
why large reservoirs for the reception of water cannot be constructed in 
hill-side ravines. This plan has been suggested by some, but I am 
not aware that it has in any place been put into practice. The idea is 
this—select a suitable spot on a slope or hill side where the natural incli¬ 
nation of the ground converges towards a common point, construct a 
large cistern, and having covered it strongly with timbers, but not water¬ 
tight, then so cover with sand, gravel, &c., that water will filter through 
it into the reservoir; a conductor from the bottom of the cistern, extend¬ 
ing to the surface of the earth horizontally, may be so graduated in 
the quantity it discharges as to convey a continual stream from which 
cattle can drink at any time. 
I have said that prairie lands are not so well adapted to raising stock 
as grain, but simply so from the lack of water ; they will produce grass 
bountifully when seeded with timothy grass, and sheep do well when 
pastured on them, even where the sheep have not access to water; these 
animals can be deprived of this and suffer less in consequence than other 
stock. It is said by some that the prairies do not produce wheat equal 
to that raised in the openings, either in quantity or quality. The differ¬ 
ence which I have observed is, that the wheat raised in the openings is a 
little more plump generally, but the quantity of the crop on the prairie 
