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the contractor supplying the wire. The machine will cut and bind nearly ten acres a day; the cost, therefore, for the seventy acres will be $87.50, or say $90, to be safe.

The thrashing will cost him six cents a bushel for his wheat, or $84 for his fourteen hundred bushels; and the farmer has to supply food for the men and horses whose services he 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 eight hungry men, in addition to her own family; but plentiful food, well cooked, is no bad investment, for it reacts strongly on both the quantity and the quality of the work done.

A fair average cost is fifty cents a day for each man, and the same for each horse. The expense of keep of the cutting and binding, man and three-horse team for seven days, will, therefore, be $15. On a similar basis the keep of the "thrashing crowd" and twelve horses, for a day and a half and something over, will cost just $16.

The total outlay, therefore, on harvesting a wheatcrop of twenty bushels per acre on seventy acres, when all services and all machines have to be hired, will be $205. Or an average of just fourteen and two-thirds cents per bushel.

A glance will show what a good investment the selfbinding harvester is, if only well cared for when harvest is over. The farmer who has a machine of his own saves more than six cents a bushel, and, on a crop of fourteen hundred bushels only, would pay for the machine in less than four years.

Let us see, then, what wheat-growing in the Willa

mette Valley costs-a matter of deep interest to the intending emigrant, and to farmers in other parts of the world who have to compete with Oregon-grown wheat.

We will take the same seventy acres, as a reasonable extent for a small valley farm. Once plowing, at the rate of two acres a day with a three-horse team, or one and a half acre for a two-horse team-that is thirtyfive 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, at the rate of twenty-one acres a day, or three and a third days' labor for a man and four horses. The seed will cost $98, at the rate of two bushels per acre and seventy cents a bushel.

The cost, therefore, of growing the crop will be $98 in money, and the labor of one man for forty-eight days and a third, and of a pair of horses for sixty-nine and a quarter days.

Putting the farmer's labor into money at the rate of a dollar a day, and that of his team also at the rate of half a dollar a day for each horse (and these are here the regular rates of wages), the result will be $117.50; add the $98 for the seed, and 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 thrashing, and add twelve days' labor for man and one team of horses hauling the grain to the warehouse this represents an additional cost of one cent and seven tenths per bushel, and the total cost then is thirty-one cents and seven tenths per bushel.

Remember that this wheat is grown on the farmer's

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own freehold, which may have cost him twenty or twenty-five dollars per acre. Do not forget also a taxation of about fifteen 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 dollars' worth of excepted articles. But add no rent or tithe, and recollect that in this calculation the farmer's own labor and that of his team are charged at market price against the crop.

The charge for warehousing the wheat till it is sold is four cents a bushel; and the wheat-sacks, holding two bushels each, will cost from ten to twelve cents each.

Add, therefore, still nine and a half cents a bushel for subsequent charges, and the farmer who kept accounts would find his wheat, in the warehouse and ready for market, represented to him an outlay of forty-one cents and a quarter a bushel.

If he sells at eighty-five cents a bushel, that gives him a profit of $8.75 per acre on the portion of his farm in wheat.

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CHAPTER VI.

The farmer's sports and pastimes-Deer-hunting tales-A roadside yarn -Still-hunting-Hunting with hounds-An early morning's sport -Elk-The pursuit-The kill-Camp on Beaver Creek-Flounderspearing by torchlight-Flounder-fishing by day-In the bay-Rock oysters-The evening view-The general store-Skins-Sea-otters— Their habits-The sea-otter hunters-Common otter-The mink and his prey.

THE Oregon farmer has one great advantage over his Eastern or European brother. Starting from the first of January, he has until July comes a good many days wherein he can amuse himself without the detestable feeling that he is wasting his time and robbing his family. The ground may be either too hard or too soft for plowing; or he may have sown a large proportion in the autumn and early winter, and so have little ground to prepare and sow in spring; and he has little, if any, stock-feeding to do as yet.

A good supply of hay is the only addition to the pasture-feed that he need provide; so long, that is, as he is content to work his farm in Oregon fashion.

Many a one is within reach of the hills where range the deer, and shares in the feeling strongly expressed to me the other day, "I would rather work all day for one shot at a deer, than shoot fifty wild-ducks in the swamps."

As I was riding out to the hills not long since, I met an old friend of mine returning from a week's hunt in the regions at the back of Mary's Peak.

His long-bodied farm-wagon held some cooking

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utensils, the remains of his store of flour and bacon and coffee, his blankets, his rifle, and the carcasses of his deer. With him were two noble hounds, Nero and Queen-powerful, upstanding dogs; stag-hounds with a dash of bloodhound in them; black and tan, with a fleck of white here and there. "Had a good time, John ?" we asked, as we stopped at the top of a long hill for a chat. "Well, pretty good-ran four deer and killed three; got my boots full of snow, and bring home a bad cold," he answered. "Where did you camp ?" "Away up above Stillson's, there "-pointing to the mountain-side just where the heavy fir-timber grew scattering and thin, and the clean sweep of the sloping crest came down to meet the wood. "We was there inside of a week, hunting all the time." "See any bear?" "Just lots of sign, but I guess my dogs haven't lost any bear; the old dog got too close to one a bit ago, and came home with a bloody head and a cut on his shoulder a foot long." "Find many deer?" "Had two on foot at once one day: killed one, and hit the other, but he jumped a log just as I shot, and I guess I only barked him; I ran after him to try for another shot before he got clear off down the cañon, but I tumbled over a log myself in the snow, and just got wet through, and my boots all filled with it." Pretty rough up there, isn't it?" "Well, it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fallen timber; but you can't get through them woods fast when you have to run round the end of one big log one minute and then duck under another, and then scramble on to the next for dear life, and half the time get only just in time to see the last of the deer as he gets into the thick brush." "Better come out with us after the ducks, John." "Blamed if

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