186 PEXOBSCOT AND AROOSTOOK UNTON SOCIETY. 



take two good weekly newspapers. I am sure he cannot afford to 

 do without the information they bring him. By them he learns 

 the price of any article he wishes to buy or sell ; the best mode of 

 cultivation ; the best and most improved implements ; the best 

 breeds of stock, kinds of seeds, &c. 



It is highly important for the farmer to select the best and most 

 improved implements, of which the plow stands at the head ; no 

 other implement is so indispensable ; no other can take its place. 

 The man who wields the plow is a thousand times more the bene- 

 factor of mankind, than he who wields the sword ; yet the one 

 is immortalized and the other forgotten. Great improvements 

 have been made in the plow within the last forty years. Then the 

 neighboring carpenter made the wooden part and the nearest black- 

 smith ironed it. The old broken hoes and shovel blades were care- 

 fully laid aside to nail upon the moldboard. Well do I remember 

 the first plow I ever held, which if here to-day would be the great- 

 est curiosity at this exhibition. And well too, do I remember my 

 vain attempts to keep the little awkward thing in the ground ; and 

 when I denounced it as worthless, grandfather said " it was an 

 excellent plow," and it probably did excel the plow described by 

 Stevens, in his Arabian travels, drawn by an old woman and 

 jackass harnessed together. But now, how changed ; not only 

 are large manufactories making every description of plows, Avhere 

 the farmer may get any size or pattern his fancy may dictate, but 

 already is the steam engine attached to a gang of plows, capable 

 of plowing in the best manner, a hundred acres per day. Nor are 

 improvements lacking in other things ; the horse reaper and mower 

 may be seen sweeping down whole fields, while the old scythe and 

 sickle cut their acres. 



Perhaps the greatest improvement farmers have made is in neat 

 stock. I can recollect when it was said in my native town, that 

 steers three years old, girthing five and a half feet, were middling ; 

 now it is common to see yearlings above that size. That is occa- 

 sioned mainly by improvement in breeds. Since the introduction 

 of the Durhams, Devons and Herefords, a very great improvement 

 has been made. I was told by a member of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture, that by the introduction of improved breeds in his vicinity, 

 neat stock had doubled in value within the last five years. Here, 

 improvement is but just begun ; and like other improvements it 

 has its deadly foes. Some say one thing and some another. Some 

 say the Durhams are large and handsome, but they are nothing 



