The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-10-07
Improved Machinery and Cheaper
Wheat.

since 1857 The remarkable fall is of
course due in the main to tine financial
stringency, which forces borrowers who
are holding wheat, to sell at any price they
can get. The pressure upon them Is
heightened by the large surplus from last
years harvest, some ninety million bushels,
in face of the new crop about to come in.
Apart from this cause of depression, apart
from the sympathy with the decline in
Silver which has brought down SO much
else, wheat has fallen in price during the
past decade for no other reason than that
the cost of its production and transporta-
ton has fallen. In 1882 and 1883 the
average price of wheat in New York was
SIPS; in 1886 80 cents; in 1887, 80 cents;
in 1890, 81 cents; 1891, when European
harvests failed, S1.0S. Last years quota
tions began at S1.054, closed at 7Sl cents,
and averaged 80 cents for the twelve
months. One year with another wheat
farming must pay as well as other occupa-
tions or it would not be followed. What
influences distinct from those Of the money
market, has been bringing down the value
of wheat?
First and chief among them have been
the railroad extensions, which have opened
up immense stretches of new wheat lands,
especially in the Northwest where the
length of the summer day more than COM
pensates for the shortness of the season,
and where Scotch Fyfe, Blue Stem, and
other sterling varieties thrive as no where
else. The recently completed Great
Northern Railroad has brought into the
market millions of acres of land, offered on
terms which bring the cost of raising a
bushel of wheat to point to which gives
pause to the producer in the other cropped
regions of the Middle and Southwestern
States. And new railroads, built with
steel rails Of new cheapness, are able to
bring grain to market at freights which
grow steadily smaller, while water trans
portation on whaebacks and other monster
lake craft, completes by its constantly
Lowered toll.
Next as cause for the cheapness of
wheat must be named mechanical advance
oIo,,,. ,,o,ho,. Ena. IN rho ;n,provanant of'
farm machinery and in its more general
use. Today on prairie farms, gangs of
four plows are not uncommon. Shoe
drills, wider than ever, harnessed to four
horses, sow as many as twenty six rows of
of grain at once, automatically pressing by
chain or wheel the earth around the seed
in such wise as best to favor termination.
In the West and Southwest the lister
does better work than the drill on irrigated
land. Its motion initiates that of shovel,
the machine digging shallow trough,
dropping ia the seed and covering it up
with surprising neatness. Harvesters and
self binders have been gradually improved
until in the latest models there is no risk
of upselting on a hill side or of sinking in
soft or swampy soil. Machines of this
pattern are turned out of single factory
at the rate of one a minute during every
working day. Between dawn and dusk on
a Minnesota farm machine has cut and
hnapd twenty four acres Of wheat twenty
fold quicker than the farmer could do it
without mechanical aid, the ingenuity of
the progress eliminating in the motions
of the steel finger, which ties the knot in
the twine of each sheaf more simply
than the human hand can do. Within
ten years, steel has been gradually replac-
ing wood in farm machinery; today save
in its shafts and revolving arms, the harv-
ester and self binder is of steel throughout.
But here, as elsewhere, the inventor finds
it to his advantage to revise his practice
by experience afield; in mowers, the vibrat-
sing pitman, when made Of hickory, out
lasts a dozen made of steel. With this
one paradox 10 puzzle over, the manufac
turer finds his machines at all points bet
tered in design by the change from wood
to STEEL Taking a hint from the grain
stalk, he makes his frames in the strongest
form possible, that of hollow tubes; but
that he may perfectly secure the angular
joints, he adopts square instead of circplar
tubing. All this means ease in working
machine that has a good form and rightly
keeps it, and It means fewer adjournments
to the blacksmith shop for repairs. Parts
liable to wear are now sold by manufac-
turers at nominal prices, and with wrench
and screw driver any handy man eau re-
place old with new in few minutes The
canny Scot who invented the chilled iron
pillow, and has made million and half
such pows, supplies favorite make with
new noses at 40 cents piece. In per-
fecting the outlines of all varieties of his
plough he has let the wear of the metal
show him just where a curve might with
advantage be modified.
In descending the scale of price, farm
machinery has kept wheat company. A
farmer in Minnesota or either Dakota can
buy plough, tedder. rake, seeder,
barvester and self binder for from $3.50 TO