IQQ BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



planter will make as large a saving. After the corn-planter comes 

 the Thomas smoothing harrow. With it I have hoed, better than 

 tweut}' to twenty-five men would have done, sixteen acres of corn 

 in a day for one man and pair of horses. This followed by the 

 horse-hoe, completes the hoeing of the corn without the hand-hoe, 

 or, at most, excepting one da3-'s work or part of a day in pulling a 

 few weeds that may have escaped. For potatoes the hand-hoe is 

 absolutely unneeded. 



Of the many machines used, or yet to be used in the various 

 departments of our form industry, these will serve to illustrate the 

 absolute indispensibility of the full employment of mechanism on 

 the farm. I hold it no exaggeration to say that one man can plow, 

 fertilize, plant and tend thirty acres of corn alone up to harvesting. 

 If in one department of farming all this is true, will it have nothing 

 to do with the profits and with the attractiveness of farming? It is 

 said that machiner}' cannot be afforded on our hill farms with nar- 

 row opportunities for use to the few crops grown. This objection 

 would have some force provided our conditions were forced upon us. 

 Our walls can be cheaply removed, thus removing one objection. 

 But machinerj" for two, or five acres of corn, or potatoes or grain, we 

 are not going to bu}-, but for many times those numbers. We are 

 going into business now and get a full and fair yield for machinery'. 



But the smaller class of farms? says some one. Cooperation — 

 joint ownership of some machines is a clear way out. A two- 

 rowed corn-planter will do the work of a neighborhood. The same 

 with the fertilizer distributer, and some other machines. It is said 

 that there is friction in this method. Necessit}' is a wonderful 

 lubricator and will smooth this difficult}'. But if we prefer to growl 

 at each other like animals, and be so selfish that we cannot har- 

 monize, then we have got to live one degree nearer their existence ; 

 hunt just for an existence. I am sorry that it is so, but am not 

 responsible for the fact that, in agriculture as elsewhere, the 

 tendency is towards centralization or laig:'st success in largest 

 operations. The old motto is reversed, and it is now large farms 

 for profit. I do not refer to the top-heavy fiirms of the West, but to 

 the larger farms East, that can till from one hundred to three hun- 

 dred acres. In referring to machinery, I maj' be allowed to say a 

 word of encouragement for the East against the West. Freight now, 

 in December, is forty cents a hundred from Chicago, but the corn 

 comes from beyond Chicago, and pa3-s local freight into Chicago. We 



