SECRETARY'S REPORT. 75 



If I had no horses, but had oxen, I think I could work them at much 

 less cost than I could hire horses. Oxen, as a usual thing, are kept 

 much cheaper than horses, because they are not usually worked as 

 hard nor driven as flist ; and the comparative cost of keeping each 

 depends much on these contingencies. 



" All the mowing machines that I have seen appear to me to be 

 very simple in their construction. But when I know there are many 

 farmers who do not know how to hitch a yoke of oxen to a modern 

 plough and plough properly with it, then I must believe all cannot, at 

 once, learn to use a mowing machine. But I have never been troubled 

 in teaching almost any one with whom I would trust my horses, the 

 use of the machine, after a few hours' showing. If a man is unskilled 

 in the use of machines and wishes to use a mower, he would do well 

 to learn of some one who has used the machine ; but if he readily 

 understands the use of machinery, he will quickly learn to run a 

 mower without instruction. I have taught some in a few hours, while 

 with others I have had to be near at hand for days. 



" In a good neighborhood, where there are from fifty to one hundred 

 acres of mowing suitable for the machine, it would do very well for 

 farmers to own a machine ; but the prices of machines, as at present 

 sold, are at least thirty-three per cent, higher, in proportion to their 

 cost, than most other farming implements." 



In other parts of the State, also, similar results were obtained. 

 The following, from that experienced farmer, Wm. F. Porter, 

 Esq., of Bradford, will serve to show the general character of 

 the whole. He says : — 



" Dear Sir : — In answer to the questions contained in your letter of 

 December 22, 1855, respecting my experience in the use of mowing 

 machines, the comparative economy of their use and the common 

 scythe, &c., I will state, as briefly as I can, the conclusions I arrived 

 at from my experience the past two years. 



" The machine I used the past season was manufactured by John 

 P. Adriance & Co., and patented by J. H. Manny. With that, one 

 man and two horses will cut ten acres of grass per day, yielding 

 from one to two tons per acre, on land well laid do\vn, work- 

 ing the horses not more than ten hours, leaving the man sufficient 

 time to grind his scythes, and leaving the grass in the best possi- 

 ble condition for drying. The whole expense, if a man owns his 

 horses, would be not more than three dollars, or thirty cents per 

 acre. Men in this vicinity cannot be hired during the hay season 



