SECRETARY'S REPORT. 67 



a season when labor is to be obtained with difficulty, and at 

 even higher than the usual high wages, and when the weather 

 is often fickle and precarious, generally oppressively hot, 

 making the task doubly irksome and unhealthy. But, besides 

 this, many acres of grass on our ordinary farms ripen at about 

 the same time, which, if allowed to stand too long, -will decrease 

 in quantity and value of hay which might otherwise have been 

 made from it. This last consideration I regard as one of the 

 strongest reasons for availing ourselves of the use of the mowing 

 machine, by which it can be secured and saved most quickly, 

 easily and cheaply. 



Mowing is, at best, one of the severest labors on the farm, 

 notwithstanding the efforts of poets and other writers to make 

 people believe it is all fun. It calls into play nearly every vol- 

 untary muscle in the body, requiring not only the more frequent 

 and regular movements of these muscles, but, on account of 

 the twisting motion of the body, an unusually great exertion 

 of muscular power. Nor does it require any small amount of 

 skill to become a good mower, since it is proverbial that, unless 

 the boy becomes accustomed to the scythe and learns while 

 young, he can never become a skilful mower. That the inge- 

 nuity of man should have been turned into this direction, 

 therefore, and studied to shorten and lighten this severe opera- 

 tion, is not at all strange. That it should not have been done 

 before, should, perhaps, rather excite our surprise. The reaper 

 has been known and used on a limited scale for half a century ; 

 and as the process of mowing by machinery is not wholly 

 unlike that of reaping, the one would seem to have been natu- 

 rally suggested by the other. 



The first mowing machine which met with any success in this 

 country is believed to be that of William Manning, of New Jer- 

 sey, patented in 1831, and which met with a limited success 

 more than twenty years ago. This machine was furnished with 

 the serrated or saw-tooth knife, having a vibratory motion. 



In 1834 appeared the Ambler patent, simple in its construc- 

 tion, with a cutter bar of wrought iron, and a single smooth- 

 edged knife, operated by means of a crank, which gave it the 

 vibratory motion. It was used to considerable extent in 1835 

 and 1836. 



Another machine was used to some extent in 1835, by which 



