FARM IMPLEMENTS. 127 



this year, to determine who has shown the greatest skill in the 

 management of those now in use. 



The returns of the competitors, (an abstract of which is 

 herewith appended,) furnish much useful information. They 

 establish conclusively, that machines can be used to mow with 

 advantage a much larger range of field, as to quality and con- 

 dition of land and grass, than one would have supposed to be 

 possible at this early stage of their introduction. Rough land 

 covered with stones, hilly and broken surfaces, reclaimed bogs, 

 salt marsh, all seem to have been brought under the dominion 

 of the machine, with as few casualties to it as usually fall to the 

 common scythe. At the same time the returns show with equal 

 clearness that the farmer will gain in the end, by putting his 

 fiield into better condition for the use of the machine ; and it is to 

 be hoped that one consequence of their introduction will be 

 clearer and better ordered fields, and the removal of stumps and 

 stones that have been too long an eye-sore and a disgrace to 

 many of our farms. 



The returns in detail show how minute the sub-division of 

 our farms has become from the smallest of the fields cut over, 

 not averaging, with the exception of the river bottoms, four 

 acres. These small fields are great impediments to good farm- 

 ing in every point of view, and particularly to the use of ma- 

 chinery moved by oxen or horses. It would not be too much 

 to say that one field of twenty-five acres can be more cheaply and 

 better cultivated, and with a better pecuniary result per acre to 

 the farmer, than twenty acres cut up into three, four or five 

 lots. 



The time employed in cutting with the machine is of con- 

 siderable importance in reference to its labor-saving properties ; 

 and if we were confined to the returns themselves, it would be 

 impossible to decide how far this economy has been carried. 

 Some of the competitors have doubtless deducted for all stop- 

 pages ; that is to say, they have made an exact return of the 

 time during which the machine was actually in motion, while 

 others have counted from the time when they commenced work 

 to the moment when they finished, without deducting for 

 stoppages to rest and repair. Nearly all the competitors, 

 however, have cut a measured half acre before Mr. Lincoln ; 

 the average of the time being about twenty-two minutes to 



