The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-02-04

hundred pounds each, and worth $500 a
span. He has pet names for all, and keeps
them fat. He hires his other force of
Work-horses as needed. He has fifteen
farm wagons, and three private carriages
for himself and friends. He keeps two
COWS for milk and cream. With the excep-
ton OF hundred-acre patch of clover and
timothy, and trifle of gardening, he crops
only wheat. Seed-time and harvest only
require his attention; he is his own man,
he says, nine months in the year. He keeps
two responsible young men on his "Grant
farm" at all times also two ever-trustv
and cheerful eDUny Slr1s. lie mas an eighty
acre wood-lot bordering his prairie, equal
In profit, he says, to two acres of wheat.
SOWING WHEAT.
Mr.. Dalrymple attaches special impor-
lance to seed-sowing and sowing early.
He commences about the 18th of April,
and dispatches the whole in two weeks.
He uses twelve broadcast seeders, which are
followed by twenty-four drag-teams All
move together in battalion order, under
one supervision. His horses are in good
trim, the men make long days, and are all
cared for generously. He puts in bushel
and a-half of Scotch fife wheat to the acre.
His last springs seeding took an even
three thousand bushels, and was finished
in exactly twelve days.
HARVESTING.
Harvesting is the great event of the year
and calls out the true Dalrymple talent
and directing energy. The idea is to Sc
cure the largest measure of results in the
shortest space of time; to get the harvest
ing finished, the wheat to market and the
in ,,,lil IL ~
ling along under barn covers, or watching
their fields in terror of fires or equinoctials.
Two weeks before harvest he advertises in
st. Paul for one hundred and twenty-five
men at $3.50 Il day. He has no trouble
in recruiting good men who have worked
in the pineries on river rafts They like
the excitement of great numbers. Harvest
opens early in July. Fifteen four-horse
Mccormick reapers move into the field to-
gether, following each other side by side
like the flight of wild geese through the
air. Ninety binders swarm on their
tracks, working in stations ola mile. They
are followed by twos and twos, in number
of twelve. A mounted overseer directs the
whole. 1t is an inspiring sight-ffteen
broad-armed reapers plunging into sea
of waving grain. Men and horses do
their best. If one falls behind another
takes his place. Everything is provided
for and no time lost. Horses are washed
and well groomed at night. Men 60 into
the field at sunrise, and are called to din
ner at II; lunch is taken out at 1, and
supper ready at dark. All feed at one ta-
BILE in the long rear wing. Aunt Minnie
and Amanda have ample help, and are IA
diant with added kitchen glores, and
two dollars a day. Hundreds of visitors
come from afar to witness the great
harvest spectacle. sIn two weeks the bat
tie with the reapers is over, and six-thous-
and wheat-stacks checker the wide harvest
fields
There is no stacking. When the reapers
have finished, the whole force of men and
teams are turned over to the threshing ma.
chimes and market-wagons. Four ten
horse power and two steam-power ma
chimes are moved into line and ready for
work. The wheat is drawn straight away
from the shocks, put through the machines,
emptied into bags, loaded on wagons, drawn
to the river, lifted in the elevator, run
through the cleaner, spouted in bags,
shipped to Milwaukee, and sold on arrival.
All this goes on each day, as one act under
one system of direction. Every night the
machines are moved to new stations, and
the fresh straw burned. The men get Two
dollars day during the thrcshng period.
and work as many hours as nature and
daylight will allow. In twelve or fifteen
days the work of the threshers and market
wagons is done.
Fall ploughing is a simple affair with
Mr. Dalrymple, and requires no extra SUI.
fall nj Al
threshing, one manager looking after all.
Twenty two-horse ploughs are put into the
stubbletield together. They move in or
der and in sections three miles about turn
ing furrow twelve inches wide and each
year little deeper than before, to reach
fresh SOIL They cut six acres day, and
require two months Of average fall weather
to complete the whole. Mr.. Dalrymple
pays $50 month for this season of work,
not exceeding ten hours day. With the
completion of the ploughing the sea-
son of work closes, and Billy" and
tom" and Nancy" and Jerry," are
stripped of their shoes, and turned loose
in the forty acre stable lot, to fly their
heels and switch their tails in unrestrained
enjoyment, till April breezes have returned
again upon the hills. No ghosts of horses
have ventured on the farm for more than
ten years.
The average cost of raising wheat on
good Minnesota wheat-lands at last sum-
mer prices of labor on the Mississippi,
is figured by Mr.. Dalrymple at fifty
cents bushel or ten dollars an acre. The
items of expense per acre include stub
ble-plowing, So; seed-wheat $3.50; SOW
ing 81; cutting 81; binding, etc, 1925;
threshing etc, $3.50. With cheapened
transportation as the West must have, Mr.
Dalrymple thinks the average price of
wheat on tho Mississippi cannot fall below
Il dollar a bushel.
Mr.. Dalrymple gives the following re-
suits of his three summer recreationS
His crop from seventeen hundred acres
in 1867 harvested twenty-one bushels to
the acre, and Melted him $4,000, over and
above the entire cost of his land, poughing,
fencing, seeding, and all the labor employ.
ed.
His crop from seventeen hundred acres
in 1868 harvested twenty-five bushels to-
the acre and nettcd him 100000 at home,
above the cost of production.
His crop from twenty hundred acres in
1869 harvested twenty-five and half
bushels to the acre and netted his $4,000
above the cost of raising.
Adding the present cash value of his
farm ($S0,O00) and the not profits Of his