Machinery on the Farm

...similar transaction twenty-five years ago...

...The Forgotten in a forest by still lakes other field he had cut with a new two-horse corn-cutting A dim, subdued design the lichen makes, machine...

...plough, though the cost per acre is greater, and the In my grandfather's time, the potato-growers from work, as a general thing, not so well done-for the few Maine hauled their crops in ox-carts over rough roads days gained in getting in the seed may turn the balance and across the "Shun Pike," through his town, to the in favor of the tractor...

...standing untouched...

...In spite of all im- from all points of the compass...

...provements in the way of manufacture and transporta- Where the shore-line is low and the sand stretches tion, the difference between the market value of the out in wide beaches at low tide, there are apt to be raw material and the price of the finished product broad acres of salt-meadows between the dunes and when it finally comes into the hands of the consumer, the upland...

...and steam railway, get less in exchange for their crops, More than one person has said to me of late: "You after transportation and other expenses are paid, than can't afford, nowadays, to sell on the hoof and buy did their grandfathers...

...Last fall I had a beef-cow in fair condi- men now engaged in the production of modern farmtion-but the best offer I could get for her was $18.00...

...and, here is where the one great saving of farm KENNETH SLADE ALLING...

...greatest of care, to have the milk cleaner than it ever was Most crops can be raised more cheaply where large by the old method...

...I hired a neighbor Many farmers are wondering what they can feed their to haul it to a sawmill in operation about two miles cows between now and pasturing time ; yet last summer, away...

...I do not know of any crop that now gives you can do the work yourself, no matter how many cows greater yield to the acre, for a given amount of work, you have...

...hired a gang of men in haying time last summer and Evidently, the difference cannot be laid entirely on went with them to do his haying, having his own farmthe increased cost of labor, where the lumber-dealers ing tools and horses...

...markets in Newburyport, Massachusetts-twenty or Wherever farming is done on a large scale, especithirty ox-teams often following in close succession...

...If a farmer could have given it away, and curiously enough, the nowadays should sell his timber standing and take the fall in value of the wild meadows began within a very money that he gets for it to the lumber market, invest- few years after the mowing machine and the horseing it in planed boards, he would probably get not more rake displaced the hand-rake and the scythe in the than one-eighth as much as he would have through a work of gathering in the meadow-hay...

...At the close of the lumbering time in the spring ploughing as well as in harvesting...

...Fall and winter, year after year, I ebb-tide, lead the sea-water which has overwhelmed have hauled my corn to the old water-power grist- them, back again to the ocean...

...Now freshTwenty-five years ago, when standing pine timber and salt-meadows are alike neglected...

...but the ular machine, a saving can be effected, but the adprices they offer for my lambs and mutton are scarcely vantage of getting your work done on time is lost one-half of what I can get by having my lambs and fat when you have to wait your turn...

...On the one hand, it is possible, by using the than it formerly did...

...twenty head of cattle, has his corn-fields cut by hand A furrowed shadow somewhat intricate, when he can get men enough to do the work-only re- The tall trunk rising unaware of it, sorting to the reaper when the frosts threaten his More curious than leaves, more delicate...

...The lumber-dealer himself, in in the barn, he found that in spite of the favorable making an offer for a woodlot, now has to take into weather, it was costing him, more than the hay was account the cost of keeping a car and running it long worth...

...I know of one man who had no trouble in selling than with intensive cultivation...

...it costs more to would not differ so very widely from those of the milk your cows by machine, but if your hired man leaves you, present...

...I am told that 364 THE COMMONWEAL August 18, 1926 he refused to have even a mowing machine or horse- machinery comes in-getting urgent work done on rake on his broad acres...

...but more and prices received in shillings and pence, and the goods more the average farmer is being driven to diversify his taken in exchange-broadcloth, groceries, and rum...

...At the valued at $5o.oo an acre, for $2.50 an acre, and conpresent time, $8.0o per i,ooo feet is considered a good sidered myself lucky to find a purchaser at that price...

...have rendered untold benefit to the farmer...

...cases fail to pay for themselves...

...I season, he hired a gang of lumber-jacks to work his much prefer to do my ploughing with horses, but often farm, using the simple hand-implements of former find it more profitable to hire it done with a tractorgenerations-yet he paid his bills better than most...

...the skids ready to load on the sled...

...One local farmer have, at the most, brought $3.00...

...more, was also harvested in like manner...

...August 18, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 363 MACHINERY ON THE FARM By WILLIAM EVERETT CRAM I T IS taken for granted so generally that work of cows and calves he wanted within a few miles of home, all sorts has been rendered more efficient by mod- but now he must keep a car and go long distances in ern labor-saving devices, that a word from the competition with other traders who scour the country other side may prove worth while...

...In former he lives there now) a farmer who, though prosperous, days he could...

...The price of apples and other fruit in the city mar- Simple farming tools, like the plough and harrow, ket is about four times what it was forty years ago...

...The same rule seems to apply to all buyers...

...forty years, the grass on these wide salt-marshes was Now steel-burred, gasoline-driven mills have re- mowed down yearly by scythes, and raked and stacked placed water-power and mill-stones, and I pay the mil- by hand labor, making winter provender for the cattle...

...machinery-beginning with those at work in coal and I had her killed and dressed on the farm, kept one- iron mines and foundries, through the whole list of quarter, and sold the others to my neighbors, in that managers, factory-hands, salesmen, advertising artists, way clearing $40.00...

...and yet, as the populahis milk until he installed a milking machine, when it was tion increases and land-values rise, intensive cultivarefused by the dealers on account of its dirtiness...

...crop...

...At Hampton, New Hampshire, these gains on us steadily...

...ally when one main crop is raised, modern machinery I have read the old memoranda giving in detail the unquestionably works to good advantage...

...The not reached by the channels of natural formation...

...crops, in order first to supply the needs of his houseAveraging one season with another, the Maine farmers hold and his stock-for selling at wholesale and buyof today, who send their potatoes to market by truck ing at retail is a losing game...

...price to get for standing timber, while finished lumber If it had not bordered the upland, it is doubtful if I has soared to sixty and eighty dollars...

...by the pound...

...It took me two been in good demand-in fact, impossible to get at hours to saw it down, log it off, and roll the logs onto any price just now at the close of a long, hard winter...

...fall, he hired two men-one about seventy, the other, eighty years old-to cut one piece by hand with home- I ichen made corn-cutters, paying them each $3.0o a day...

...on the other, the least carelessness gets areas can be roughly ploughed and harvested by one the milk in much worse condition than it ever was by hand- man, though the yield per acre is, of course, much less milkings...

...but more yet the price offered for them in the orchard has not complicated machinery-planters, harvesters, manureincreased, while the expense of keeping the orchards spreaders, etc.-used only for a few days or weeks each free from blight, moths and other pests, is out of all season, are rusting while standing idle, and in many comparison to what it used to be...

...tion becomes more and more a necessity, and hand When my cousin's corn was ready for the silo last labor must, in part at least, replace machinery...

...old practice of giving the miller his tithe in meal, was From the time of the first settlers until within the last abandoned just before my time...

...The last few seasons have been deficient in summer The other day I went into my pasture and cut a rainfall, and as a consequence, hay of all kinds has pine, two feet through at the stump...

...If I had sold the tree standing, it would making under present conditions...

...Where neighbors Men now come long distances from the city in trucks, can agree to exchange work, each owning one particto buy from the farmer for the city markets...

...sheep killed on the farm, and selling them to my On the whole, I am inclined to think that if all the neighbors...

...Narrow ditches, three mill at the Falls and paid the miller for grinding it, feet in depth, formerly drained every rod of meadow approximately one-tenth of the value of my grist...

...The cost of hauling, sawing, and returning the when the drought made a short hay-crop absolutely lumber, came to $3.25, and I got twenty dollars' worth certain, it was difficult to sell even the best upland hay of boards and plank, besides nearly a cord of wood standing-and all because of the high cost of hayfrom the top...

...I have just sold for $12.00 per i,ooo board feet, the price of sold the salt-marsh which, in my father's time, was finished lumber was fifteen or twenty dollars...

...He quit work, leaving acres of good hay distances_ over back roads and logging paths...

...freight-haulers, and truck-drivers-were to leave their One man who owns a large dairy and milks his present occupations and go back to the land, working cows by electricity, was consulted in regard to the ad- with only such tools as were in use a hundred years visability of buying a milking machine...

...He said ago, the crops each season and their market prices There are two sides to the question...

...meadows are several miles in extent, probably one From biblical times down to the latter half of the thousand acres or more in all, intersected by three last century, a tithe, one-tenth, of the farmer's grain crooked rivers and innumerable salt-creeks, which, at paid the miller...

...but long before all the hay was are wont to lay it...

...ler one-fifth of the value of my grist, and have yet to The meadow-grass along the fresh-water reaches see a steel-burred mill that can grind my corn half so of the streams stretching inland for a dozen miles or well as the old mill-stones used to do...

...The field cut by hand cost $3.0o an acre-the Trailing its quiet tones over the bark, other, $7.0o an acre...

...One of my neighbors who keeps Stranger than silver, neither light nor dark...

...get about with a horse and buy all the was certainly anything but progressive...

...A In Wolfboro, New Hampshire, not many years ago, local cow-trader said recently that lie could not afford there lived (and for all that I know to the contrary, to buy on so small a margin as he used to...