HARVESTING WHEAT IN CALIFORNIA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2987, 21 January 1881, Page 4

HARVESTING WHEAT IN CALIFORNIA.

This is how they manage the harvesting of wheat in California, as describe 1 hy the San Francisco Alta :—" The sickle is set on a level with the bottom of the lowest heads of grain, so as to take no more of the straw than is necessary. From the platform behind the sickle the grain is carried by an endless apron or elevator into a waggon driven alongside the header ; and this waggon, relieved by another at short intervals, transports the grain to the threshing machine, which is not infrequently moved from one point of the field to another, so as to be near the header. Or, if the threshing is to be done after the cutting,, the header waggons throw their loads into piles, very different from the stacks carefully built of sheaves in those climes where rain is frequent in summer, and where the threshing may be delayed until late in the fall. The management of the steam threshing machine is usually the exclusive business during July, August, and September of its owner. If the machine is of the ordinary size, he expects to thresh about 1660 bushels—loo,ooolb— in a day ; that is, if the crop is heavy and the circumstances favourable. He employs a dozen men, who are ordinarily boarded by the farmer, and receives from five to eight cents per bushel for threshing. His total daily expenses may be 60 dols, and his average gross receipts twice as much per day. He gets his pay on the basis of the weight of the grain as sacked, and the more soil, gravel, cheat, and other material that should be included, the greater his profit. The thresher may havo 3000 dollars invested in his machine, waggons, horses, and tools needed for travelling and working ; and, as he hires and manages a dozen men, and has but a short season of threshing, he must make a good profit. The business demands much skill in the control of machinery and _ men, and great care to prevent fires and accidents so that the average profit is not unreasonably large. The charge for threshing is low, because the farmers generally have preferred that the work should be done with haste rather than with care. "