Comparisons of the statistics of the crops of 1850 with those of 1910 have shown that the saving to the American farmer in labor-time in the 60 years increased his potential efficiency by 2,000 per cent. To instance a few of the more common farm processes: a quantity of grain may be sown to-day in 33 minutes that formerly required 10 hours and 36 minutes; and a job of harvesting can be done in 1 hour that would have taken 46 hours and 40 minutes in 1850. A planting of corn which now requires but 37 minutes then required 6 hours and 15 minutes; and a husking job which now is completed in 3 hours and 36 minutes would then have consumed 66 hours.- The mowing machine does in 1 hour what the scythe will hardly do in 7 hours; and the potato planter does in 1 hour the work which formerly took 8 hours with a hand hoe. A bushel of wheat can now be raised with the expenditure of but 10 minutes of the farmer's time ; in 1850 it required an average of 3 hours and 3 minutes. Statistics show also the interesting fact that where the farm is generously supplied with machinery, the farm income is much enlarged. For example, in Florida, where the value of the machinery on the farms averages $30.43, the yearly income of the farm-worker averages $119.72; in Iowa, with machinery averaging $196.55 to the farm, the farm-worker's average
annual income is $611.11; in North Dakota, where the machinery averages a value of $238. 84 per farm, the average income per farm worker is $755.62.
Production.- In no other country in the world is there such extensive use of farm machinery as in the United States. Accord ing to the census of 1910 the total value of such machinery was $1,265,149,783, an increase of $515,373,813 (68.7 per cent), over the figures for 1900, and 734.6 per cent greater than those for 1850. In 1910 farm machinery constituted 3.1 per cent of all farm wealth. Measured on the basis of area, for every acre of improved farm land in the United States there was on the the farms in that year a value of $2.64 in machinery. The production of farm machinery in the United States in 1914 amounted to a value of $168,120,632. The exports for that year were valued at $31,965,789. (See AGRI CULTURE; DAIRY PRODUCTS; FARM POWER; STOCK RAISING). Consult Davidson, J. B., 'Agricultural Engineering> (Saint Paul, Minn., 1914) i King, F. H., 'Physics of Agriculture' (Madison, Wis., 1901) ; Warren, G. F., 'Farm Management' (New York 1915); United States Department of Agriculture, 'Bulletin 412> (Washington 1916).