Nor is it light work to follow the horse hay-rake all day, lifting the teeth at every swath. Pitching hay is about the same work all 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 twisting and writhing about as the hay is pitched into the wagon. It is true they are harmless, but I don't like them, all the same.
We put up a big hay-stack each year, in spite of the most dismal prophecies from our neighbors that the rain would mold the hay, 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 to sulphur-matches, I declare). But the event justified us, and the whole stack of 1879 was duly eaten to the last mouthful.
Wheat and oats follow close on the heels of the hay. We finished our stack on the 17th of July, and began cutting wheat on the 27th.
There is one harvest, and only one, on record in Oregon, where rain fell on the cut grain and injured it. The rule is to feel absolutely secure of cutting your grain, thrashing it in the field as soon as cut, and carrying it from the thrashing-machine straight to the warehouse.
There is lively competition to get the thrasher as soon as the grain is cut. The "thrashing crowd," of some seven or eight hands, which accompany the thrasher, have a busy time. They get good wages—from the $2.50 for the experienced "feeder" of the machine, to the $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 thousand to fifteen hundred bushels with horse-power; driven by steam, the quantity will run up to upward of two thousand bushels. These quantities seem very large by the side of those yielded by English machines, but they are too well authenticated to be open to doubt.
"HEADERS" AND "SELF-BINDERS."A great wheat-field of a hundred acres, with headers and thrasher going at once, is a lively scene. The "header" is a huge construction ten feet wide. Revolving frames in front bend 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 along unterrified by the revolving frames and vibrating knives. As soon as the header-wagon is filled, it is driven off to the thrasher, whirring away in the center of the field, and an empty one takes its place.
Six horses to the header, two each to three header-wagons, eight to the horse-power on the thrasher, and one to the straw-rake, are all going at once. One man driving the header, one each to the three wagons, 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. Very speedily the field is cleared, and the just now waving grain lies piled in a stack of wheat-bags in the center, waiting the departure of the "thrashing crowd," to be hauled by the farmer to the warehouse.
A little of the straw is taken to the farmhouse, for use as litter in stable and pig-sty; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is gone, and a great, unsightly, black patch is the last record in the field of the year's crop.
The worst features of the "header" are that the wheat has to be much riper than for the reaper or self-binder, and consequently more is strewed about the field and lost; the machine cuts the wheat higher up also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave their seed. Its advantage is the greater breadth of its cut and more rapid rate of work. In more general use is the reaper or self-binder.
Several of our farmers' wives and daughters can take their turns on these machines, and give no despicable help to the hardly-worked men. This year it is expected that twine will be substituted for wire, thus removing one great objection. A twine-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 in the State, and its working up into the harvest-twine. Be it known that these counties of the Willamette Valley produce the finest and best of flax, samples of which secured the highest premium at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876.