The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-07-08
Improved Machinery and Cheaper
Wheat.

and the lowest prlce since 1881. This re-
marknble fall is of course due ia the main to
the financial stringency, which forces bor
rowers 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 sympathy with the decline in silver
which has brought down much else, wheat
has fallen in price during the past decade for
no other reason than that the cost of its pro
duction and transportation has fallen. In
1882 and 1889 the average price of wheat in
New York was SIPS; in 1886, SO cents; in
1887, 80 cents; in 1890, 81 cents; in 1891,
when European harvests failed, Sl.OS. Last
years quotations began at $l.059, closed at
7Si cents, and averaged 80 cents for the
twelve months. One year with another,
wheat farming must pay as well as other oe
cui atiums, or 1t would not be followed. What
influences distinct from those of the money
Market have 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, es-
pecially in the Northwest, where the length
of the summer day more than com1ensates
for the shortness of the season, and where
Scotch Fyfe, Blue Stem, and other sterling
varieties thrive as nowhere else. The re-
Gently 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 a point
which gives pause to the producer in the
overcropped regions the Middle and South
western States. And new railroads, built
with steel rails of new cheapness, are able to
bring grain to marke: at freights which grow
steadily smaller, while water transport on
whalebacks and other monster lake craft,
completes by its constantly lowered toll.
Next as u cause for the cheapness of wheat
must be named mechanical advance along
another line; in the improvement OF farm
machinery and in its more general use. 10
day on prairie farms, gangs OF four ploughs
are not uncommon. Shoe-drills, wider than
ever, harnessed to four horses, SOW as many
as twenty six rows of grain at once, automat-
ically 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 in 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 upset
ting on hillside or of sinking In soft or
swampy soil. Machines of this pattern are
turned out of single factory at the rate OF
one u minnie during every working day.
Between dawn and dusk on Minnesota farm
machine has cut and bound twenty-four
acres of wheat twenty fold quicker than the
farmer could do it without mechanical aid,
the ingenuity of the process eliminating in
the motions of the steel finger, which ties the
| Of aaah chpaf SImnlv
than the human hand can do it. Within ten
wears. steel has been gradually replacing
| wood in farm machinery; today, save in its
shafts and revolving arms, the harvester and
self binder is of steel throughout. But here,
as elsewhere. the inventor finds it to his ad-
vantage TO revise his practice by experience
aield: in mowers, the vibrating pitman, when
made OF hickory, outlasts a dozen made OF
steel. With this one paradox to puzzle over,
the manufacturer finds his machines at all
points bettered in design by the change from
wood to steel. Taking 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 circular tubing
Ali this means ease in working u machine
that has a good form and rigidly keeps it. and
it means fewer adjournments to the black
smiths shop for repairs. Parts liable to wear
are now sold by manufacturers at nominal
prices, and with wrench and screw driver any
handy man can replace cid with new in a few
minutes. The canny Scot who invented the
chilled iron plough, and has made million
and half such ploughs, supplies a favorite
make with new noses at forty cents apiece:
In perfecting the outlines of all varieties OF
his plough he has let the wear OF the metal
show him Just where curve might with ad-
vantage be modified.
In descending the scale of price, farm taa'
chinery has kept wheat company. farmer
in Minnesota or either Dakota can buy a
plough, tedder, u rake. seeder, harges-
Ter and self-binder for from $3.50 to $500.
according to size, quality, and distance from
the railroad; and he needn't have money to
do it with either. If he knows his business
and is trustworthy, trnst is extended, and at
moderate rates OF interest il his farm is not
large enough to warrant his getting o thresher
and cleaner of his own, he can join o CLUB
and share with his neighbors the use OF o
machine easily despatching two bushels
minute.
While field machinery has been increasing
the quantity Of "a farmers wheat crop, 1t has
been improving its quality. In all latitudes'
efficient machines practically double the dura-
ton of good weather. in n9rtheriy regions,
liable to frosts late in the spring and early IN
the fall. sowing and harvesting can be pressed
in the nick of time. Rust, that pest for which
there is no known cure, can in considerable
measure be prevented by sowing on the ear
/ lest day possible.
! Here we touch another cause OF diminished
| cust 10 wheat raising, namely, advance 10
agricultural science, brought home to the
| farming community With more diligence than
ever before. In this regard the State expert
ment stations have rendered valuable service.
Kansas has saved millions Of dollars through
! Prof. Snow of Lawrence, who has shown the
| farmers of the State how to make war on in
sect snarauders, and has provided weapons
for the fight. And from one end of the
country TO the other, officers Of like intelli-
gence are bringing through their bailetins
| before the farmePs the results of organized
observation of new varieties, of seeding,.of
crop rotation. At the Minnesota stations, for
example, il has been proved that the careful
cleaning Of seed and the keeping to o single
variety in the planting, have had the effect
of increasing the yield Is to % bushels to the
acre, while the crop has matured all at once,
an important point where quick harvesting
/ machinery is used. In diffusing this kind OF
! information the press has powerfully second
ed the enginery of science. In 1887 DIR. j. L..
Jensen Of Denmark discovered preventive
for the fetid smut which had severely plagued
the American wheat farmer; the seed wheat
is immersed for ten minutes in water at l32'
/ Fahrenheit, a temperature fatal to the smut
spores, bat only beneficial to the wheat.
Within few nionths after DIR. Jensen's ex-
perimehis, every newspaper IN the wheat
districts told their story with an effect iWpas-
sible to any Government bulletin.
The country press, following in the wake
of n citv uress quite aa iArQelv read by the
farmers, is beginning in earnest IN agitation
for good roads, an agitation which will hestow
upon the farmer gain equal to decided re
duction of his railroad rates. ltisn tso much
the price of wheat in New York that concerns
him as the price on his farm; and that, MS fai
as road improvement affects II, is in has owr
hands.
Wheat culture, despite its vieissitddes, tend
more and more TO become a manufacture thu
cost of which can be computed almost az
closely as the operations of the factory Las