FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 367 



we replenish our stock of implements at least once in seven years. In other 

 words, it costs one-seventh of 8:27,000,000, or ^3,850,000 to replace and repair 

 broken and worn out implements. Adding to this amount the interest ou the 

 cost or capital invested, as previously given, we find the farmers of the State 

 arc expending S5, 740,000 for implements each year. Deducting tlie school 

 tax, this amount is equal to, if not greater, than the total yearly taxes on farm 

 property. 



Again, if we take the average amount of time that farm tools and imple- 

 ments are used, it will be less than one-fifteenth of tlie year, or twenty days. 

 Not many mowers, reapers, grain-drills or cultivators are used fifteen entire 

 days during the season. One of the tools most in use, the plow, running 

 twenty-five days, would turn over from forty to fifty acres, and where land 

 cropped exceeds this amount on a farm, there will usually be found more 

 than one plow. 



We find, therefore, we are paying over five and a half millions of dollars 

 annually for implements to use not more than one-fifteenth of the year. 



I do not advocate farming by hand labor, for to make it profitable, and at 

 all agreeable, we must use the best labor-saving machinery. We can't go back 

 to the sickle and the scythe, and live as intelligent men should, nor could we 

 supply foreign markets Avith agricultural products, thereby securing a portion 

 of their wealth, and making our future prosperity a certainty. 



Our country has just commenced to do business in a way that must prove 

 successful, whether carried on by an individual, a company, or a nation. We 

 are selling more than we are buying. The balance or foreign trade is in our 

 favor. The greater portion of our exports are produced by our farmers, and 

 to keep up this great export trade we must raise large quantities of meat, grain 

 and other farm products, and be able to deliver them in the markets of the 

 world at a lower price than they can be furnished by any one else. We must 

 produce them cheaply, or competition will drive us out of the market, and we 

 will lose the trade. To do this we shall be obliged to do the greater part of 

 our work with machinery. 



The question for us to study is how to use machinery to make it pa\'. 



A writer in the Scientific Farmer, of last September, gives a list of the im- 

 plements he finds it necessary to have to carry on one of the small JSTew Eng- 

 land farms economically, and their cost is over $1,000. 



But how can the man with but from forty to eighty acres of land afford to 

 buy all this machinery? IIow can he compete with him who has from one to 

 five hundred acres? To grow the same crops as cheaply he must use the same 

 machinery. But, the small amount of his crops will not warrant so large a 

 capital invested in implements, to be used only a few days in the year. 



This is a problem that has awakened much interest, for it is a well known 

 fact, that in manufacturing, large amounts of any article can be produced 

 cheaper in proportion than small amounts. 



It is even thought by some, that in time, the large farms will absorb the 

 small ones, just as we see extensive firms in other kinds of business, by their 

 better facilities undersell and drive out the small firms, and monopolize their 

 trade. There may be some danger ahead for small farmers from this cause, 

 for a bushel of wheat or corn can undoubtedly be produced for less money where 

 a hundred acres are grown, otiier things being equal, than where only ten are 

 raised. But to my mind the only great advantage the large farmer has over 

 the small farmer, is tliat he can atford to use more and better implements, and 

 use them to better advantage by having longer fields to work in. 



