AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 425 



By reference to the catalogue of the machines and imple- 

 ments on exhibition at the Crystal Palace, it would appear 

 that, at last, even in the agricultural department, labor was 

 about to be nearly all performed by the power of steam or the 

 strength of animals, and that intellect and intelligence, and not 

 muscle, are to be the chief capital of the farmer. 



An unnecessary alarm was excited some years ago, lest the 

 multiplication of substitutes for human labor would so cheapen 

 it, that men would find it difficult to gain employment, and if 

 they should chance to find it, the wages would be too little to 

 support them. The prospect of a railroad from the West, 

 sent terror at one time into the breasts of our farmers, lest 

 the cheap productions of the prairies should render those of 

 their own soil valueless ; but fears of that description have 

 long since vanished. The more railroads, and the more labor- 

 saving machines, the higher the prices of agricultural products. 

 It was not uncommon to find flour selling sixty miles from the 

 sea-board, in Massachusetts, twenty years ago, at $5.50 per bar- 

 rel, while at the same place at this time it will bring $3 more; 

 notwithstanding all the improvements of modern times. There 

 is no danger, therefore, that the products of agriculture will 

 suffer for the want of purchasers, until a new order of things 

 shall dawn ; but, on the other hand, there is danger, that owing 

 to the facilities afibrded to speculators, we shall be forced to 

 pay starvation prices for provisions, while cargoes of flour and 

 corn, of American growth, are selling at half-price, or moulding 

 in the overburdened ports of Australia and California. 



E. L. KEYES, Chairman. 

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