46 
Modern Business Geography 
vanced than in our five great wheat states. The land is often made 
ready for the seed by a gang of from eight to sixteen plows linked to- 
gether and drawn by a steam or gasoline tractor. This is followed by 
a broad harrow drawn by four or five horses. Next comes a planting 
machine that scatters the seeds evenly and covers them to just the 
proper depth. One such machine can plant a hundred acres in a day. 
The ripened wheat is usually harvested by a self-binder. This is 
a very ingenious machine that cuts the standing grain, collects it into 
a bunch, encircles it with twine, ties a knot, cuts the twine, and drops 
the bundle or sheaf. Usually four or five horses draw the machine. 
Sometimes four or five self-binders are drawn by one tractor. 
After the wheat has been well dried, the grain is taken from the 
heads by another complicated machine, the thresher. This is even 
more wonderful than the self-binder. The sheaves made by the 
binder are brought from the field in wagon loads. The thresher takes 
a sheaf, cuts the binding twine, loosens the straw, and feeds it into 
a cylinder. There the seeds are knocked from the heads. Then the 
grain is separated from the straw by being dropped through a current 
of air, which blows away the light straw and chaff and stacks it at 
one side. Finally, the clean grain is automatically weighed and then 
dumped into a waiting wagon. As soon as one wagon is filled, an- 
other takes its place. Two or three thousand bushels of wheat a day 
can thus be handled by a single machine. What a change this is 
from the early days when the straw was spread on the barn floor and 
the wheat was pounded from the heads by a jointed stick, or flail, in 
the hands of the farmer! 
In our most important wheat belt, machinery does nearly all the 
work. It can be used to advantage because the farms are level 
and large, often of several hundred acres. It is necessary because 
the population is scattered, and human labor is not only costly 
but also difficult to hire. Hence farm work consists of pulling the 
levers and opening the throttles of machinery rather than of wield- 
ing heavy tools. 
Wheat farming outside the wheat belt. In Kansas, Nebraska, 
the Dakotas, and Minnesota we have seen that wheat farming is in its 
most advanced stages, and that machinery is there used most exten- 
sively. Elsewhere two factors largely determine the methods of 
wheat farming ; namely, the relief of the land and the degree of pro- 
gressiveness of the people. 
In Oregon and Washington, where the wheat farms are large, the 
progressive farmers use machinery fully as much as in our chief