16 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



White House, that precipitated the Rebellion, that shook 

 the land with the thunders of civil war. Some hard things 

 are said about King George in the immortal Declaration ; 

 but this land has suffered tenfold more from the tyranny of 

 King Cotton than it ever suffered from the tyranny of King 

 George. 



Most of the farmers of 1776 made their own tools ; and, of 

 course, they were clumsy and imperfect enough. Many new 

 ones have been invented : all the old ones have been greatly 

 improved. The plough that was left in the furrow by those 

 *' embattled farmers " who " fired the shot heard round the 

 world," was a very wooden thing indeed : it could not have 

 cost them much of a pang to leave it in the furrow. The 

 point only was iron ; the mould-board was wood, sometimes 

 plated a little with sheet-iron ; the standard rose almost 

 vertically from the beam, and was held by two pegs driven 

 into it ; and the ploughman who followed such a machine all 

 day must have been a tired man at nightfall. 



Drilling-machines for planting certain crops were used by 

 very few farmers a hundred years ago ; but the cultivators, 

 the pulverizers, the crushers, the horse-hoes, the horse-rakes, 

 the horse-forks, and the tedders of to-day, were wholly 

 unknown. Fanning-mills were in use; but much of the 

 grain was still cleaned by the hand fan. The only threshing- 

 machines known to the colonists were the flail, the wooden 

 roller, and the horse's hoof. A man could thresh with a flail 

 from eight to twelve bushels a day : with almost any modern 

 thresher, properly attended, a hundred bushels per man per 

 day is a moderate result. 



The instruments for cutting grain and grass were the 

 sickle and the scythe : even grain-cradles were unknown at 

 the beginning of the century. Of course the reaping and 

 mowing machines had never been thought of. The part that 

 this invention has played in our national drama is one of no 

 little interest. If it had not been for the reaper, the late 

 war might have had a very different issue. By the aid of 

 this wonderful machine, the farmers were able to gather 

 their harvests with very few hands, and thus the young men 

 of the country were released for service in the army. If it 

 had not been for the reaper, hundreds of thousands of the men 

 who went to the front would have been obliged to stay at 



