394 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



mon remark among themselves ; it indicates thriftlessness 

 and lack of wisdom which, until amended, will always stand 

 in the way of successful farming. 



The average value of the agricultural implements and 

 machinery on each farm in the State is about $120; of the 

 same in Dukes County, $39, or less than one-third of what 

 farms avera2:e throughout the State. 



No farmer, nor set of farmers, can use old-fashioned, 

 clumsy, past-dated tools, and stand in the same rank or 

 successfully compete with those who keep abreast of the 

 times with the new and perfected implements and machines 

 of the present day. 



To use a shackly, one-horse wagon of ten bushels capac- 

 ity, with a patched and rotten harness, for carting out 

 manure, instead of a strong, handy dump-cart for one or two 

 horses, and the same for harvesting; or an old-time, rickety 

 plough, an old-fashioned A harrow, for preparing the land, 

 and a little old one-horse plough or corn harrow, in place of 

 a fine iron or improved wooden-beam steel or chilled-iron 

 plough, a wheel harrow, a Thomas smoothing harrow, and a 

 shapely Planet cultivator or Front's horse hoe, for properly 

 cultivating the growing crop ; or a mere scythe with a ten- 

 year-old snathe, a hand-rake and fork for getting in hay, in- 

 stead of a good mowing machine, a tedder and a horse rake ; 

 and an old spade to chop up such roots as he may have, 

 instead of an easy, quick-working vegetable and root cutter, 

 shows in any farmer an inert, inactive disposition, quite in- 

 consistent with the spirit of this age, which so long as it pre- 

 vails will most assuredly hinder the advancement of him 

 who uses such tools, and just as surely will drive the suc- 

 ceeding generation of boys from the farm to the lively em- 

 ployment of braking freight cars on a railway, driving a 

 city grocer's wagon, or to cast their bread on the waters 

 from a mackerel smack or a whale-boat. Farming at the best 

 is a laborious occupation, a constant struggle against the 

 forces of nature. The elements, excessive moisture or drouth, 

 heat and cold, all kinds of vermin and insects above the 

 surface of the gi'ound and below it, dependence on middle- 

 men, and the inability to unite and to make and sustain fair 

 paying prices for their products, are all combined to make 



