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Show KEEP FARM MACHINERY BUSY Lazy Binder Works Only Forty Days in Eleven Years "Work-or-Fight" Policy Applicable. (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture.) The work-or-fight policy should be applied to farm machinery as well as to men. Though machines cannot fight they can be put to work on many occasions occa-sions instead of standing idle in the barn lot. Most farm machines and Implements Im-plements are capable of doing much more work than they usually do, and the more they are used the less man labor will be required on the farm. Three men with a corn binder, one operating op-erating the machine and two gathering and shocking the bundles, will cut from seven to ten acres a day, while four or five acres would be a fair day's work for the same three men cutting corn by hand. The .average corn binder lasts about eleven years, but during that time does only about forty days' actual work. There is no doubt that it could render several times this much service before wearing out If there were more work to do. There seems to be very little relation between the amount of work done annually by a corn binder and the years of service. The bulletin refers to a survey con- ducted in New York state which showed show-ed that the more the corn binder could be used each year the less the cost of cutting the corn when the cost of using the binder was taken into consideration. considera-tion. Two hundred and thirty-three of the 458 binders on which data were obtained, ob-tained, cut 15 acres or less annually at a cost of $9-7S per day used and $1.67 per acre. The remaining 225 cut over 15 acres annually, averaging 32 acres, at a cost of $3.24 per day of service and 57 cents per acre. The original orig-inal cost of one of these binders was about $125. Thus If there Is only one or two days' work for the binder to do each year, the cost of cutting the corn with It will be so great that its use will not be advisable unless it Is Impossible to cut the corn by other methods without with-out seriously neglecting other work. If this is the case, the bulletin recommends recom-mends that two or three neighbors, each of whom has only a small crop, combine In the purchae and operation of a corn binder. The first investment required of each and the machinery cost per acre will then be greatly reduced. re-duced. This plan should not only apply ap-ply to corn binders, but to other labor-saving machinery. ' |