SECRETARY'S REPORT. ' 79 



or 286 square feet in a minute, allowing no time for rest or 

 sharpening the scythe. Here the machine cut 4:^^-^ times as 

 much as the man, or, allowing the machine no time for rest or 

 turning, it cut 1,270^*q- square feet a minute, or 4:-^q\ times 

 more than the man in the same time. In the first instance, 

 ^tVo" times, with the five feet cutter-bar. 



Many other experiments, in different parts of the State, have 

 come within my knowledge, where the results were so nearly 

 alike as to lead to the conclusion that the above is a fair 

 calculation for lots similarly situated ; but the following from 

 the report of the above-named committee will be found to con- 

 firm the testimony already given. On the 18th of July — 



" The committee inspected a machine owned by and worked on the 

 farm of George C. Davis, Esq., in Northborough. This machine was 

 No. 2, working with a cutter-bar four feet eight inches long, drawn 

 by two horses, weighing 2,084 pounds, driven by Mr. Davis's man ; 

 speed, when cutting, twenty rods the minute, or three and three- 

 fourths miles the hour. The trial was on a plot of land four rods by 

 twenty, containing one-half acre, and was mowed in sixteen swaths, 

 averaging four and twelve-hundredths feet each swath, and in twenty 

 minutes' time ; speed, including turnings, three miles per hour. Hay, 

 per acre, 2,700 pounds. The ground was more uneven than Mr. 

 Hovey's, or it would have been cut over in the same time. Mr. 

 Davis's man mowed a swath with a scythe, twenty rods, or three hun- 

 dred and thirty feet long and seven feet wide, or two thousand three 

 hundred and ten square feet, in nine and one-half minutes, allowing 

 no time for rest or sharpening his scythe, equal to two hundred and 

 forty-three square feet in one minute. This machine mowed, allowing 

 no time for rest or turning, one thousand three hundred and fifty-nine 

 and sixty one-hundredths square feet the minute, five and fifty-nine 

 one-hundredths times more than the man in the same time. 



" July 19. The committee examined the working of a machine owned 

 and worked by Walter Bigelow, Esq., on his farm in the city of Wor- 

 cester. This was a No. 2 machine, with a cutter-bar four feet eight 

 inches long, drawn by two horses, weighing 1,920 pounds, driven by 

 Mr. Bigelow himself, at a speed, when cutting, of twenty rods a min- 

 ute, or three and three-fourths miles the hour. This half acre, twenty 

 rods long and four rods wide, was cut in sixteen swaths, averaging 

 four and twelve one-hundredths feet each swath, and in twenty-three 

 minutes' time ; speed, including turnings, two and sixty-one one-hun- 

 dredths miles the hour. The grass on Mr. Bigelow' s land was stout 



