424 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



NORFOLK. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



The committee on agricultural implements report that it is 

 due to Mr. Henry Partridge, Jr., of Medfield, that the exhi- 

 bition was not perfectly barren of those articles which most 

 appropriately symbolize the great science of agriculture, and 

 which, as much aa any thing, mark its progress and contribute 

 to its success. 



The articles constituting the largest collection, were gathered 

 in one of the city warehouses, and comprised a sample of the 

 ordinary implements of agriculture, such as have been in com- 

 mon use. The premium was offered, to induce manufacturers 

 and dealers to add to the interest of the exhibitions by present- 

 ing articles so intimately connected with agriculture, and so 

 indicative of the progress of the art. 



The changes and improvements which have been made in 

 agricultural implements in the space of ten or twenty years, 

 are marked and significant, but from year to year, it is difficult 

 to discern, in the ordinary implements, any remarkable alter- 

 ations. In the annual list of patents there are many in the 

 agricultural department which are designed chiefly for the sec- 

 tions where farming is done on a far larger scale than here in 

 New England. The character of our soil, and its rough and 

 uneven surface, obstruct the operation of those labor-saving 

 machines, which have been so extensively introduced into the 

 Western States, including, also, the State of New York. 



During the year 1852, letters patent were granted for in- 

 ventions and improvements in agricultural implements in num- 

 ber as follows : churns, nine ; corn shellers, two ; cultivators, 

 three ; grain separators, four ; harvesters of grain and grass, 

 twenty ; hoes, one ; hullers of rice and buckwheat, three ; seed 

 planters, twenty-four ; ploughs, fourteen ; potato diggers, two ; 

 potato washers, one; rakes, four; straw cutters, four; thresh- 

 ers, four ; winnowers, four ; ox yokes, three, and some others ; 

 and among all the hundred patentees, not more than two or 

 three are from the State of Massachusetts, and not more than 

 Bix from all the other New England States. 



