50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



this labor was paid for cliiefiy as so miicli brute physical force. 

 Intelligent labor, skill and thought found higher rewards in other 

 callings, and tlie practical farmer was thought to be sufficiently 

 well educated if he was able to hold plough, to mow, to sow 

 and to reap. The labor, the physical force, necessary to carry 

 on the operations of the farm, could be easily obtained in those 

 days, and it was very natural that farmers should not then be 

 able to see the need of any great variety of implements for the 

 performance of their daily work. 



But there is a very different state of things now. In many 

 parts of the country it is very difficult to procure labor, and 

 everywhere its price is far higher than it Avas even a few years 

 ago. It is almost impossible to procure intelligent labor at any 

 price. These facts have arrested the attention of farmers of 

 all classes, and the prejudices in favor of established practices 

 and old implements are fast giving way. 



The highest mechanical skill is taxed to the utmost to supply 

 the place of hand labor by machinery, and the time cannot be 

 far distant when we shall avail ourselves of all the labor-saving 

 implements now in use in other countries, with many of our 

 own inventions, to meet the wants of American farmers. Efforts 

 in this direction have already enabled the farmer to increase 

 his crops very largely, while depending much less than formerly 

 on manual lal)or. In the meantime farming has become more 

 and more attractive to the young, and men of intelligence have 

 turned their attention to it without fear of finding it a mere 

 mechanical drudgery. They recognize it as a pursuit full of 

 pleasure, and as opening a field for the exercise of the 

 highest skill, where human genius has some of its grandest 

 triumphs to achieve. 



An examination of the improvements which have already 

 been made in farm implements, and which have worked a com- 

 plete revolution in agriculture, would obviously require far 

 more space than I can devote to it. I must confine myself to 

 the consideration of a few, as examples of the progress which 

 has been made in this department of agriculture, dwelling 

 especially on those implements to which the attention of the 

 community has been particularly called. 



Good ploughing may be called the basis of all good hus- 

 bandry. The estimation in which the plough was held by 



