10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



due to our own ingenious mechanics ; for though the English 

 machine was imported and tried here, it was too heavy and 

 chimsy to commend itself to our farmers and was soon 

 thrown aside. The American Tedder now saves the work of 

 eight or ten men, in the same time, accomplishing a larger 

 amount of work equally well, and at a season when it may be 

 said, emphatically, that time is money. 



The horse-rake had been in use for many years, and it was 

 a machine of (jreat value to the farmer ; but when the mower 

 came in to shorten the labors of cutting the grass, which the 

 horse-rake stood ready to gather rapidly enough, there was 

 still something wanting to complete and round out, as it 

 were, the new system of haying. The tedder did this. 

 Spreading hay by hand, though not so tedious or so labori- 

 ous as some other operations, is still slow work, and wath the 

 facilities we had for cutting an acre an hour, and for raking 

 several acres in the same time, it still required a large num- 

 ber of hands to cure the grass rapidly enough. The tedder, 

 which does this was, therefore, a most important addition to 

 our previous stock of haying tools, and it is appreciated as 

 such, and regarded as about fis indispensable as the mower 

 and the horse-rake. » 



Though the horse-rake w\as known and used sixty or sev- 

 enty years ago in some of its more simple forms, the improv- 

 ments that have been made in it during the last twenty years, 

 have been so great that they leave little to be desired in a 

 machine for gathering hay. It saves the labor of eight or 

 ten men in the same time, and will rake well from twenty to 

 thirty acres a day, with a single horse and driver, and with- 

 out over-exertion. It has effected such a savins: that it 

 must be regarded as second only in importance to the 

 mower, and almost as essential on the farm as the plough 

 itself. 



The horse-fork is another new machine designed to save the 

 severest labor of the fiirni. Its effectiveness has been com- 

 pletely established, and few new inventions have met with 

 greater popular favor than the horse-pitchfork, and it has 

 come into general use upon most large farms. 



Nor has the improvement in other implements of the farm 

 been less marked. The plough has been adapted to a greater 



