192 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



that important implement of farm husbandry. Of all the 

 " harrowing spectacles " which the committee saw, the Rotary 

 Harrow made the deepest impression and will be the longest 

 remembered. He also exhibited a press which he entered as a 

 " Scrap Press," but is capable of being used for a variety of 

 purposes, in the pressing of fruits and other substances which 

 nearly every family has occasion for during the year. It is well 

 worthy of their attention. 



Four different mowing machines were presented for examina- 

 tion : — the Buckeye, the Allen, Wood & Little's Mower, and 

 Manny's Improved. According to the rules of the society, 

 neither of them could be entered for premium. Each machine 

 has its friends, who are decided in their preferences, and doubt- 

 less, each one has its points of excellence, and, it may be, its 

 defects. But the committee had no opportunity of seeing them 

 operate in any place to test their merits or show their defects. 

 The committee spent considerable time in examining them all 

 and listening to the statements of those who had them on exhi- 

 bition. But without a practical test, an opinion, based as it 

 must be, upon what they saw of them in the hall, would be 

 worth but little to the farmers, who are the class most deeply 

 interested in their success. The mechanical construction of 

 the Buckeye machine seemed to the committee to admit of 

 its adapting itself readily to an uneven surface, which on many 

 farms is a feature of great importance, and no machine can 

 fully meet the wants of our farmers that does not possess it. 

 It is also claimed by the friends of the Allen machine that this 

 feature is one of its great merits. A good one-horse mower 

 combining the requisites of lightness of construction and easy 

 draft, and one that will perform good work on our small New 

 England farms, is a desideratum. There was a one-horse 

 machine exhibited, but whether it possessed the qualities 

 necessary as enumerated above, the committee had no means 

 of correctly judging without a trial. If such an one has not 

 already been invented, we hope the day is not far distant when 

 one will be ; and we can predict for the fortunate genius 

 who accomplishes the task the blessings of many weary ones, 

 who, during the haying season, are " ready to perish." 



Charles B. Johnson, Chairman. 



