Two Years in Oregon

-?The "thrashing crowd"-?"Headers" and "self-binders"-?Twine-binders and home-grown flax-?Green food for cows-?Indian corn, vetches-?Wild-oats

irst week in July. We did not shut the cattle off the hay-fields till the end of Feb

of these farmers a good old-fashioned Devonshire or Worcestershire field, with its thick, solid und

nd all that anxiety as to weather which has burdened his life ever since he took scythe and pitchfork in hand. We expect nothing else but dewy nights and brilliant sunshine, so that the habit is to cut one day, pile the grass into huge cocks the

f he can not afford to pay two hundred dollars or thereabout for his machine, he hires one from his more fortunate neighbor, and pays

t looks easy-just riding up and down the field all day-but try it, and you will find you have to give close attention all the time, to be ready to lift your knives over a

the world over, I think; but at home one does not expect to make acquaintance with quite so many snakes, which come slipping down and

ay, that it would not be fit to use, and that even a "town-cow" would despise it (and they will eat anything from deal boards

the hay. We finished our stack on the 17th o

d injured it. The rule is to feel absolutely secure of cutting your grain, thrashing it in t

he $1.50 for the man who drives and loads the wagon, or pitches the sheaves. They travel from farm to farm, setting up the thrasher in a central spot, and "hauling" the sheaves to it. The quantity passed through the machine in one long day varies from one thousa

d the wheat to the knives, where it is cut and delivered in an endless stream into a great header-wagon, driven alongside the cutting-machine. Six horses propel the header in front of them, and move calmly alo

s, two feeding and tending the thrasher, one fitting and tying up the wheat-bags as the cleaned and finished grain comes pouring from the machine, and one hand at the straw-rake, are all busily at work. Ver

and pig-sty; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is gone, and a grea

strewed about the field and lost; the machine cuts the wheat higher up also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave the

-binder was exhibited at the State Fair at Salem, in full operation, and worked well. Besides getting rid of the damage and danger of the wire getting into the thrashing-machines, an additional advantage will be the fostering the growth of flax i

the State. As a mere experiment I had twenty-two acres of flax sown on the 17th of June, on some land about three miles from Corvallis which unexpectedly came und

d a half to three feet in length. In January last we saw it hackled, and the workman, a northern Irishman of long experience, tol

rain to see a splendid raw material produced and not turned to the best account. Flax is not found here to be an exhausting crop. The farmers who ha

One successful expedient is to grow a patch of Indian corn or maize. Well cultivated, and the ground kept stirred and free from weeds, the

y miles north of this place, have found the experiment a very successful one; the appearance of the two or three acres I put in this la

eling north to Portland by train, this last harvest, it was sometimes even hard to say whether wheat or wild-oats were intended to be grown. Nothing but summer fal

nto the field when the hay is off, coated with a glutinous, viscid gum, to which every speck of dust, every flying seed of weeds, sticks all too tightly. Plowing up the field, and summer fallowing, are the only remedies when the tar-weed gets too bad to endure. Tar-weed is an annual which grows some eight or ten inches high, one stalk from each seed

ject of harvesting I o

his thrashing-machine in addition to $320 for his self-binding harvester to cut his grain

heat to harvest, and that it will produce twen

cost him $1.25 per acre, the contractor supplying the wire. The machine will cut and bind nearly

hires. This expense will naturally vary according to the liberality and good management of the farmer and his wife. It falls heavily on the hostess to provide for seven or eigh

cutting and binding, man and three-horse team for seven days, will, therefore, be $15. On a similar basis the

acre on seventy acres, when all services and all machines have to be hired,

hen harvest is over. The farmer who has a machine of his own saves more than six cents a bushel,

matter of deep interest to the intending emigrant, and to farmers in

two-horse team-that is thirty-five days' labor for man and three horses. Twice harrowing, at the rate of fourteen acres a day-that is ten days' labor for a man and two horses. Sowing,

y, and the labor of one man for forty-eight days and a third

you arrive at a total of $215.50; or, on seventy acres, an average of three dollars and eight cents an acre; or, on fourteen hundred bushels, of fifteen and four-tenths cents per bushel. To this add the fourteen cents and two-thirds for harvesting and

ifteen thousandths a year on the total value of the farmer's estate, as arranged between him and the assessor-land, stock, implements, and everything else he has beyond about three hundred d

s four cents a bushel; and the wheat-sacks, holding tw

the farmer who kept accounts would find his wheat, in the warehouse and ready f

l, that gives him a profit of $8.75 per