. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture; Agriculture. 12 BULLETIN 627, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. reducing the cost of an operation, but from the cost figures given below it will be seen that the principal effect of improved harvesting machinery has been to increase to a very large extent the amount of work which one man can accomplish in a day with the assistance of horse-labor and machines over what was formerly done by man-labor alone. For example, the average cost of cutting with a binder, as shown in Table V, is $1,022 per acre, and the average cost of shocking
. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture; Agriculture. 12 BULLETIN 627, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. reducing the cost of an operation, but from the cost figures given below it will be seen that the principal effect of improved harvesting machinery has been to increase to a very large extent the amount of work which one man can accomplish in a day with the assistance of horse-labor and machines over what was formerly done by man-labor alone. For example, the average cost of cutting with a binder, as shown in Table V, is $1,022 per acre, and the average cost of shocking, as shown in Table VI, is cents, or a total of $ for the two opera- tions. In the Transactions of the New York State Agricultural Society, volume 10 (1850)* page 550, the cost of cradling and binding (and the shocking was probably done at the same time) is given as 70 cents per acre on a 20-bushel yield. In the Report of the Depart- ment of Agriculture for 1853, page 143, the cost of cradling, bind- ing, and shocking an acre of wheat, where the yield was also about 20 bushels, is given as 75 cents per acre. In other words, the cost of cutting, binding, and shocking wheat to- day, with an average yield of 16 bushels per acre, would be slightly less than 8 cents per bushel, whereas in the cases just mentioned it was a little under 4 cents per bushel. The average farm price per bushel for wheat during the 10 years 1906-1915 was about 87 cents (see United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook for 1915), so it will be seen that the cost of harvesting in recent years has represented about one-eleventh of the selling price of the crop, whereas when hand methods were used the cost of harvesting represented less than one- thirtieth of the selling price. The cost of harvesting to-day, there- fore, represents a greater percentage of the selling price of the crop than it did when the old hand methods were used. However, to-day two men (one shocking), with three or four horses
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