90 



can plough which he had used, and remarked : " I care not what the decision 

 of the jury may be ; that is the best plough on the field, and the one which 

 ought to he adopted." Numbers were sold on the spot, and a British plough 

 manufacturer immediately took measures to secure the patterns. The great 

 American machine, McCormick's Reaper, was derided at the World's Fair by 

 the leading periodical of London as an ugly cross between a wind mill and 

 a flying machine. Yet tried before a world's jury, it bore off the palm among 

 agricultural improvements of the age. Even the most scientific men of the 

 nation most advanced in agriculture, were inclined to frown upon this im- 

 provement, which may cheapen the cost of breadstuff's throughout all Europe; 

 no small gain in a climate where the greatest hazards and difficulties are in- 

 curred, not in raising, but in harvesting the crops; no small gain in an empire 

 where not a kernel of grain can be lost witli impunity, and where more than 

 a million of people have perished of famine within the last ten years. It is 

 not impossible that one result of the World's Fair, will be to cheapen the 

 bread of mankind, and in no small degree, by the introduction into the Old 

 "World of the agricultural implements of the New "World. Let the land annu- 

 ally ploughed in Great Britain and Ireland be estimated at thirty millions of 

 acres. If by the adoption of improved ploughs, but ten cents per acre is 

 saved, it would amount to the large sum of three millions of dollars. The 

 aggregate quantity of all grain consumed in Great Britain and Ireland may 

 amount to five hundred millions of bushels. Save only the small sum of 

 four cents per bushel by improved methods of harvesting, and it will amount 

 to the enormous sum of twenty millions of dollars. These almost inappreci- 

 able savings thus swell to a gigantic stream. 



"We have lately witnessed at the "World's Fair a proud and gratifying spec- 

 tacle. The citizens of our own country have received and deserved the re- 

 wards for one of the best ploughs, the best reaper, and the fleetest keel. The 

 nation sneered at as exhibiting specimens of progress only in rugged utility, 

 has borne tlie palm for one of the most perfect implements for ploughing the 

 earth, the most perfect machine for gathering the harvest, and the fleetest 

 specimen of the world's vast sail fleet, for bearing on the bosom of the great 

 deep and exchanging the productions of the globe. Yet if guided only by 

 mole-eyed experience and apathy, men would cling to old machinery and 

 implements. The marvellous improvements in the plough, the reaper, and 

 the ship, would remain unknown to seven-eighths of civilized mankind^ 

 This is a triumph, not in the arts of butchery and desolation — not a triumph 

 in a hot, insane and brutal contest for victory on land or sea, but a peaceful 

 and bloodless triumph over our mother country in the arts which bear tran- 

 quility, and comfort, and health, and bread into every lowly dwelling of man. 

 Never since the noble and prophetic language of the immortal blind bard was 

 penned, has it been more fitly verified : 



" Peace hath her victories 

 No less renowned than war." 



"We should not infer from our success in agricultural implements, that we 

 are ahead of other nations in other respects. In economical management of 



