Labor Saving Machinery ok the Farm. 607 



of their labors is due to the men who have given us so 

 much. Its sincerity should be made certain by the accept- 

 ance and use of such of the labor saving machines they 

 have devised, as are suited to our farms, our systems of 

 farming, and our circumstances. By consulting our own 

 interests we shall best reciprocate the ])enelits they have 

 conferred upon us. 



And yet, is it not true that there exists among farmers, 

 more than any other class, an unwillingness to change, a 

 reluctance to depart from the old way, " the good old way," 

 and to use means and methods more in harmony with the 

 intelligence of the age ? Without pausing for a reply to 

 this question, or to consider why it is so, if it is, I propose 

 to consider very briefly some of the improvements which 

 constitute an advance in labor saving farm implements and 

 machinery. The first implement which needed improve- 

 ment, and which had waited for it longest, was 



THE PLOW. 



When I remember the champion plow of the liomestead, 

 on which my own first boyish lessons were taken behind a 

 " six cattle team," in a stony field, a plow that left tlie 

 inverted sod as hard and firm as before it was lifted from 

 its bed, going round and round, leaving dead furrows and 

 ridges, and the furrows at the corners compressed by the 

 hoofs of the team in turning, I am free to admit that the 

 modern swivel plow is a wonderful saver of labor for the 

 harrow and the hoe, besides giving an increase of the crop. 

 The perfect plow turns the furrows all one way. It per- 

 mits the team to turn on the unplowed land, and leaves the 



