to be savers of labor, provided the wool grower is so situated that he can
attach the shearer to a horse or steam power.

There have been since the opening of the Office 6,620 patents for
harvesters, of which the only great improvement since 1870 is the twine
binder, for which over 900 patents have been taken out. The beheader is
used in California, as it was before 1870, and in the prairie regions the
sheaf-carrier has recently been introduced, holding the sheaves until
enough are collected to make a shock. Counting the labor of the men who
did the binding after the original McCormick reaper at $2 per day, the
total saving by all these improvements since 1870 is estimated at 6 cents
per bushel for wheat, rye, and oats. Much of this saving in labor is
neutralized by cost of machines, interest, and repairs. There have been
nearly 3,000 patents in fences, over 5,000 in the making of boots and
shoes, and in stoves and heaters 8,240, none affecting farm labor except
the first. In cotton growing exactly the same processes are used, from
planting to picking, as in 1850; but out of many hundred attempts to
invent a cotton picker it is now claimed that one is a success, though it
has not yet got into use. The cost of ginning the cotton has been reduced
about two-fifths of a cent per pound. There have been 176 patents for saw
gins, 63 for roller gins, and 47 for feeders to gins, out of all of which
there has been a new gin evolved which will be in use hereafter. I might
thus go around the list, but enough has been said to show that nearly all
our farm machinery was in use before 1870, and that since that date, as I
said, the reduction of labor cost has not upon the whole field exceeded
2-1/2 per cent. The assertion that reduced transportation lowers the farm
price is in flat contradiction of political economy, as, according to
that, the benefits should be divided between producer and consumer, the
farm price rising and the city or export price declining.