261 i 
lift has arrived over its desired position the slacking of the rope with- 
draws the fingers and allows the hay to fall. The elevation is accom- 
plished by horse-power, with a pulley combination. Thus every branch 
of this laborious hay-harvest has been relieved by mechanical processes. 
Some exhibitors claim to be able to unload an average two-horse wagon 
within ten minutes. 
Another class of agrieultural implements includes all contrivances for. 
preparing farm-products for marketing and consumption. In the case 
of grain-crops the first process is to separate the grain from the stalk. 
Maize is separated by hand, no mechanical process having yet been 
discovered whereby the ears can be automatically gathered from the 
stalk, but several contrivances have proved an economical success by 
which the grain is separated from the cob. Tor the thrashing of small 
grain, machines embracing partial applications of principles still regu- 
lating the process were long ago constructed. But the modern thrash- 
ing-machine, with its fuller embodiment of those principles, and with 
its subsidiary processes of separating and cleaning the grain and of ele- 
vating the straw for stacking, indicates a great advance in economic 
science and art. Farmers still living once knew no better way of sep- 
arating the grain from the stalk than by beating it with flails or by 
trampling it with horses, Could their fathers, from whom they learned 
those primitive methods, now revisit the scenes of their earthly labors 
and witness the wonderful performances of a first-class thrasher and 
cleaner, they would doubtless feel the most profound astonishment. 
But familiarized as we are with the gradual expansion of industrial 
enterprise and with the successive achievements of economic art, we 
fail to mark the grand eras of progress through which we have already 
passed. Yet,even to the present generation, the thrashing-machine is a 
wonder. It represents almost the only great agricultural process to 
which steam-power in this country has been successfully applied. 
Among the results of these machines, not including some doubtful 
extreme statements, one two-horse-power separator, it is claimed, 
thrashed at the rate of 140 bushels of wheat per hour; a large steam 
separator, constructed in Wisconsin for a California farmer, thrashed, 
separated, and cleaned barley at the rate of 10 bushels, and wheat over 
9 bushels, per minute, or about 550 bushels per hour. Fanning-mills, 
without any marked departure from old principies and methods, ex- 
hibit a very thorough application of those principles in new arrange- 
ments and contrivances for the cleaning of grain. A cockle-separa- 
tor presents a marked specialty in this class of machines. 
In Machinery Hall are exhibited portable and stationary engines, 
easily adapted to farm purposes. Hay and straw cutters display quite 
a range of contrivance, from the simple, sharp-toothed hay-knife to an 
elaborate mechanism driven by horse or even steam power. SBaling- 
presses, for hay, cotton, &c., of great size and strength, are on exhibi- 
tion. Among the oddities is a sour-kraut cutter, filling a thirty-gallon 
barrel within an hour. Mills for crushing bones, phosphates, plaster, 
&c., and machinery for the manufacture of grain into flour, are very 
elaborate, especially in processes for cleaning the grain prior to crush- 
ing, and for separating the offal from the flour. Cider and wine mills 
and presses are also numerous. 
In the steam and horse powers adapted to thrashing, and a few other 
processes of farm economy, simplicity of construction, maximum force, 
and compact mechanism seem to have been objective points in the spe- 
cimens presented. If these have not yet been applied extensively to 
the heavy rudimentary operations of tillage, it is not for lack of inven- 
