380 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Our animals are finer, our products better, and our crops 

 superior, both in quality, and in the amount of each grown 

 to the acre. 



Much of this is due to the perfection in, and the universal 

 use of, our agricultural machines and implements. 



Of the number or value of these in use upon our farms, 

 there are no returns back of 1850, where they are put down 

 at 13,209,584; in 1875, at $5,321,108, --a gain of over two 

 millions. All of these, except the simplest, have been brought 

 into use within the past forty years ; and beyond these figures 

 it can only be left to the imagination f,o estimate the benefit 

 we have received from these useful and comfortable aids to 

 our farming. 



The land is better tilled with our perfected ploughs, both 

 land-side and swivel, pulverized with the wheel-harrow and 

 the smoothing-harrow, — implements unknown forty years 

 ago. Our corn may be planted and cultivated solely b}^ horse- 

 power, our grains cut and threshed by machines ; while with 

 the mower, the tedder, and the horse-rake, we put our hay in 

 our barns in better condition in twelve or thirty-six hours 

 than was formerly done in three days. 



Our dairy utensils and implements have Avonderfully light- 

 ened woman's work in handling milk, butter, and cheese, 

 and are the admiration of all lands. 



For Avinter use we have good machines for threshing our 

 grain, shelling corn, cutting hay, stalks, and roots ; while our 

 small tools and implements are incomparably superior, not 

 only to those used by the farmers of a half-century ago, but 

 also to those now in use by any people on the globe. 



In our appliances for farming, there is no decline. From 

 want of statistics in earlier years, it is impossible to show the 

 comparative progress we have made in the improvements on 

 our lands by draining, ditching, and reclaiming poor and 

 unproductive land ; but the immensity of this is apparent 

 in every town in the State. Nor can we compare the im- 

 provements of setting out trees, vines, and fruit-bearing 

 plants, to say nothing of the universally increased disposition 

 to cultivate flowers within and about the farmers' houses, — 

 certainly indicating the groAvth of cultured and refined tastes. 



A farmhouse window filled with blooming plants, or a 

 bright flower-bed before the house (both now so common), 



