FARM IMPLEMENTS. 299 



to man or beast. A greater improvement than this has not come 

 to the knowledge of your committee, in the operations necessary 

 upon the farm. They feel they are promoting their own and 

 their neighbor's benefit, in their endeavors to demonstrate this 

 position. 



Various forms of implements for this purpose, are now before 

 the public. To discriminate between them is no easy duty, 

 especially by the inexperienced. Your committee feel deeply 

 their incompetency to the performance of this task. Their aim 

 has been to test those implements best fitted to be used on New 

 England farms, — where the surface is more or less uneven, by 

 the variations of hill and dale ; and where the difliculty of a 

 complete removal of roots, stumps, and other impediments is 

 constantly occurring. 



But two of the many machines constructed for this purpose, — 

 Manny's and Ketchum's, have been presented to your commit- 

 tee, the present season. Similar implements were before the 

 committee of the last year ; a premium of fifty dollars was then 

 awarded for the work done by Manny's machine. The com- 

 mittee then hesitated to express a preference in the machines 

 presented, both because of their inability to discriminate in the 

 use of machinery so complicated ; and because of their doubts 

 whether these are the machines the farmer wants. As a pre- 

 mium was then awarded for the work done by Manny's machine, 

 they have queried whether they should be justified in making a 

 further award for work done by a like machine, without some 

 decided improvement in the performance of the work. They 

 have looked in vain for such improvement. They are not able 

 to point out wherein Manny's machine is any better this year 

 than it was the last. Nor are they prepared to say that it is to 

 be preferred to Ketchum's. They think some implement more 

 complete than either of these is still demanded; something that 

 shall need less watching and less repairs. 



The attention of the committee was called during the hay 

 making season, in the month of July, to the operation of machines 

 entered by Moses S. Little, of Newburyport, Manny's; Horace 

 Ware, of Marblehead, Manny's ; Eben G. Berry, of Danvers, 

 Manny's ; George B. Loring, of Salem, Ketchum's. 



Messrs. Loring, Little and Ware, returned statements of their 

 operations, showing the details of cutting more than fifty acres, 



