PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 245 



for a month or six weeks, paying extra wages and converting liis 

 home into a large boarding house. And he could not cut all his 

 grass and grain just at the right time. But now how is it? 



We start a couple of mowing machines in the afternoon ; ted 

 the grass the next morning; rake it into windrows ; ted it again 

 once or twice, if it need be in the windrows ; put it into good 

 cocks and it is safe. We can draw it in the next day, or as soon 

 as we can get at it. In my own case this year, though the weather 

 was unusually catching, we were all through haying and harvest- 

 ing by the last week in July, the grain all thrashed and safe in the 

 barn ready for market. 



We have a bad climate for a poor farmer who gets behind-hand 

 with his work. But we have as good a climate as any to bo found 

 in the world if we know how to take advantage of it. 



I thrash my grain in the field by steam. I find that we can get 

 in a field of grain much more expeditiously than if we put it in a 

 stack or barn, simply because the man on the wagon can throw 

 the grain to the machine easier than he can throw it up on a stack 

 or bay. And when we are through we are through ; the straw 

 stack built, the grain in the barn, and men and horses ready to 

 fight the weeds during our splendid August and September 

 weather, when even quack grass is not diGBcult to kill. 



This is what machinery has done for us. And it has done much 

 more; but it is not necessary to allude to it. Machinerj^ makes 

 us far less dependent on the weather than formerly, and better farm- 

 ing dX^o helps us in the same direction. When I first went to 

 Rothamstead Mr. Lawes asked me about my father's farm, the 

 character of the soil, the rotation and yield per acre. " It is 

 rather light land," I said, " but yields good crops, if the season is 

 not too dry." 



"I suspect," said Mr. Lawes, "that your father is not a very 

 good farmer. There is nothing which a good farmer dreads so 

 much as a wet season." 



This was a new idea to me. I have an English foreman, and our, 

 climate is a sore trouble to him. From May till November, he is 

 always wanting rain. " The mangles are growing surprisingly," 

 he said, some weeks since, " but another shower of rain would 

 help them." 



" Perhaps so," I replied ; " but as we cannot get rain when we 

 want it, let us keep the cultivators going and kill the weeds." 



