170 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



of smaller implements, in the class of sjiovels, hoes, forks, &c., 

 which were credital:)le to the manufacturers, and are famous 

 throughout the country — the shovels of Ames, and the forks of 

 Patridge. 



In passing through the enclosure devoted to agricultural im- 

 plements, at the show of the State society, held at Elmira, New 

 York, the writer of this report was ohliged to inquire, not only 

 the names, but the uses of a considerable number of formida- 

 ble looking implements that constituted the vast display. They 

 plant, they sow^, they dig, they pull up weeds, they reap, they 

 mow, they cut, and they cover, and they do almost every thing 

 tliat is required in the great business of cultivation. They 

 formed a most pleasing part of the exhibition, and seemed to 

 encourage the idea that the time was fast approaching when the 

 combined elements of wood, water and iron might be sent into 

 the field, perform all the labors which the Deity imposed, 

 according to the Scriptures, on the human husbandman, while 

 the latter miglit be reposing in the shade of trees, planted by. 

 machinery, indulging in siestas, made more profound by the 

 aroma of the pipe, and dreaming of that millenium of ease and 

 luxury, when the farmer shall eat his bread, as well as the mer- 

 chant and the lazy lord, without any accompaniment of " the 

 sweat of the brow." 



All exhibition of mowing machines was held at Dedham, dur- 

 ing the summer, under the ausipices of the society and of a 

 committee appointed at the request of " the State Society for 

 the Promotion of Agriculture," on its offer of a premium of 

 six hundred dollars for the best experiment of a mowing ma- 

 chine, on fifty acres, within the State. It was found impracti- 

 cable to carry out the design completely, in consequence of the 

 great labor and expense of superintending the numerous trials, 

 in various places, that would be requisite to a proper under- 

 standing of the merits of the various machines entered for pre- 

 mium. 



The single trial, however, was well conducted, and afforded 

 an interesting and useful spectacle to a large company of visi- 

 tors, many of whom had never before witnessed the operation 

 of that invention, which is to cause a revolution in the mode of 

 hay gathering in all parts of the country, and especially in 

 those States where the fields are extensive, and unobstructed 



