Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-09-26
A Gigantic Agricultural Enterprise.

The lands known as the Cass, Cheney
and Dalrymple Farm aggregate IS, 900
acres, in which Mr.. Dalrymple has q
half interest and the whole of which is
under his management. There are ut
present over 10000 acres in crops, and
5000 additional acres have been put
under pillow this summer. In seeding
he uses one and one-half bushels to one
bushel and three pecks per acre. He
has one span OF horses or mules to
every eight acres, ane OF Woods plows
drawing fourteen-teeth furrow to
every 100 acres, lis self. wire binding
reapers, and twenty steam threshing
machines, which burn the waste straw.
For the sake of convenience the farm is
divided by roads into sections of 1900
acres each and there is o superintendent
to every 5000 acres. There is q complete
set Of buildings on each division, con-
sitting Of separate storehouses for each
description of machinery, spacious
boarding houses for the men, the super
intendent's house, granary and black
smiths and carpenters shops. Each
gang of men while at work is under the
control of superintendent and is ac-
companied by man to repair any acct
dent to the machinery. The working
hours during harvest are from 5 until
6. The men earn 81 per day aud board
during harvest and threshing, which
lasts about five weeks. The ordinary
pay is $50 per month and board. He
gives his hands as much as they can eat
of beef and pork, vegetables, the best
flour, canned fruits of all kinds. coffee
and tea. He employs four hundred men
during harvest, and about six hundred
during the threshing period. These
are mostly residents here, who have
newly moved into the country and
taken up Government lands, and hav-
ing plowed up their own farms are only
too glad to add $40 or $50 to their own
often scanty capital. The original cost
Of the land averaged IS an acre, and the
first furrow was broken in 1875, when
two sections, or 1880 acres were put
under pillow, and in 1876 the first crop
was harvested. This year the crop
will average twenty five bushels to the
acre, and about 1000 bushels will be
put on the cars. None of the grain is
ever stored, but is shipped at once to
the East and sold at the market rates.
The cost of putting in the first crop was
81 an acre. and of the second So, which
includes interest at five per cent on
cost of land and value and depreciation
of machinery and stock. All the mules
are bought in st. Louis, and the aver
age price paid for them and for horses
is $120. All supplies are purchased
wholesale at the cheapest market, gen.
orally New York and Chicago.
Each paper takes an eight-foot sweep
and cuts fifteen acres day. The self
binding reapers save him employing six
hundred men which he would other
wise have to do to bind up the sheaves.
In reaping, mile square is taken, and
twenty one machines work on the patch,
running one after the other in close
succession. I stood on the edge of the
large square of uncut wheat while the
first machine passed me, almost brush
ing my clothes. In five minutes the
twenty. first had gone by, and l stood in
the middle of stubble field covered
with neatly bound up sheaves and the
edge of the waving grain one hundred
and sixty-eight feet away.-Cleceland
Herald.