154 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



I make the above returns of mowing done upon the Pickman 

 farm, in Salem, during the present season. I have used two 

 machines as the record will shoAV. Russell's machine, with 

 which I began, occupied much of my time in the early part of 

 the season, and after a faithful trial of it, in which I endeavored 

 to give the inventor every opportunity to arrange it for use, I 

 was obliged to abandon it. I then commenced with Ketchum's 

 machine, the fifty-one and one-half acres of whose working are 

 contained in the above record, and which I enter for premium. 



The land upon which I used the machine is by no means 

 well adapted to the purpose. It is in many places uneven with 

 hill and valley, and in almost all places rough and stony. The 

 substratum is clay, and the soil is so heavy and springy that it 

 is very difficult to preserve a smooth surface from the action of 

 frosts and thaw, and from the passage of cattle and wheels 

 upon it. On this account there is hardly a field on the farm 

 possessed of a smooth and even surface. A portion of the 

 grass was cut upon reclaimed meadow, which had not been 

 ploughed since it was laid down for the first time, about five 

 years ago, and which presented a very bad surface of furrows, 

 ditches, holes and hammocks. The grass in some parts of the 

 meadow was heavy, from two to two and a half tons to the acre, 

 with a very thick, close bottom. 



In such mowing as this, I have found no great difficulty in 

 using the Ketchum machine. It was seldom clogged, the 

 draught has never been greater than my horses could endure, 

 at an easy pace all day, and it has adapted itself to the uneven 

 surface with perfect success. I have had it driven steadily, 

 and at a rate of speed always within the power of the horses to 

 continue hour after hour. 



The chief difficulty I have met with has been the insufficient 

 strength of the knife-bar. It will be noticed in my record that 

 I have had frequent accidents — to be accounted for mostly by 

 the roughness of the land. But I have found that in heavy 

 grass, which was very firm and ripe, with a thick bottom, and 

 on a rough surface, the fingers are quite liable to be warped 

 and bent, even when they do not encounter stones or other 

 such obstacles. In such grass, and on such a surface, the 

 knife-bar itself was found to have been somewhat bent. The 

 knives worked well, and in spite of defects in the bar and fin- 



