JUNE MEETING, 1877. 101 



bestowing, or whether at the same time that \vc have received benefits from the 

 great inventions and improvements of tlie age, we have not allowed counter- 

 balancing evils to creep in. Tlie man of ''three score years and ten" and tlie 

 octoo'enarian can testify to the sum of human enjoyments before the advent of 

 many of the great improvements that are credited as blessings to the human 

 race. During their lives the reaper and mower liave taken the places of the 

 old sickle, grain cradle, and sythe ; and the horses, guided by a single man's 

 intelligence, perform in a day the labor of several men. The threshing 

 machine has taken the place of the old flail, and the neighbors with their teams 

 join hands and perform in a day what was before a winter's job. Along with 

 the flail is laid up in a loft devoted to rubbish, the old corn fan, the flax break 

 and hatchel, as of no further use. The old clumsey two-tined iron hay fork 

 with its prongs often akimbo with its congener of three tines, in the shape of 

 Neptune's trident, but used for a less fabulous purpose, arc replaced by lighter 

 and better tools of tlie same name. 



The sower who used "to go forth to sow" on foot, and scattered his seeds 

 by hand, now rides in a chariot which, though less classic, is fully as honorable 

 as the one in whicli Pharaoh was drowned ; and he dispenses his seeds by ma- 

 chinery, and needs to scatter none by the wayside. The moon that used to 

 interfere with the times of sowing and planting, and meddle with the weather, 

 now devotes her exclusive attention to bestowing light and regulating the tides, 

 and otherwise demeans herself as a respectable moon should. The signs that 

 used to dictate to us when to doctor our animals, now allow us to study our 

 own convenience in the matter. The old theorem that we should reap what 

 we had sown, now turns out to be true, though for a century we reaped chess 

 where we had sown wheat. The ghosts and spooks that used to haunt houses 

 and scare people by moonlight, are now gone with the Salem witches. The 

 razor that used to require at least a weekly use in mutilating the face of man 

 is now used mainly in paring his corns, or is made into a pruning knife. The 

 Lucifer match has taken the place of the old flint, steel and tinder, a saving of 

 time, expense and temper. The seventh sou that used to be born a doctor, 

 oiolens volens, now does as he pleases about it, and the patient has more f aitli in 

 a diploma than in parentage. The railroads now carry us 500 miles in the 

 time that it took us to go 100 by the fastest stages and at less than half the 

 cost. Instead of weeks and months that it took to communicate with absent 

 friends, we now, through the telegrapli, accomplish it in less hours. Where ^ve 

 used to pay six to twenty-five cents postage we pay one to three. The sloop 

 that carried the runaway boy Ben Franklin from Boston to New York in the 

 short space of three days, is now replaced by the steamboat that carries less 

 worthy men over the same space in a few hours. 



It is said that the rude dug out sap-trough that officiated as a vessel for maple 

 sugar-making in primeval times, was between seasons used as a baby cradle ; 

 now the baby's cradle is made of fancy wood, and he has a hand coach 

 with a top, and steel springs. Young America used to learn his ABC, sit- 

 ting on a slab bench without back, now he sits on a divan in a temple, and is 

 fast getting to be the most important person of the age. During this time we 

 have learned to economize the muscular forces of ourselves and our beasts of 

 burden, so as to double the effects produced by them ; the loads drawn by our 

 logging teams would once have been laid to magic ; tlie simple improvements in 

 the log chain and cant hook, costing nothing but a little wholesome thought, 

 are worth thousands yearly to our lumbermen. 



