A HUNDRED YEARS' PROGRESS. 289 



We may here uote the rapid progress of these most valuable labor- 

 saviug machines, for while, iu tlie earlier trials, only one or two mowers 

 met with any success whatever, no one cloiog what practical farmers 

 could call good work, in this trial forty-two of the forty-four machines 

 entered did their work well. In the early contests even a partial suc- 

 cess was the rare exception ; in the late, failure was the equally rare 

 exception. In 1850 less than five thousand machines had been made 

 and x>ut to use, and few, if any of them, gave satisfaction. Now 

 there is scarcely a farm of any size in the country but has its 

 mowing-machine. It is one of the grandest agricultural inventions 

 of modern times, and yet we see that it is less than twenty years since 

 doubts were freely entertained as to whether it would ever become 

 practically useful, whether the numerous mechanical obstacles would 

 be entirely overcome. Its triumph has been complete. We have now 

 many mowers that have not only a national but a world-wide reputation. 

 The successful introduction of these machines was an immeasurable 

 step in advance upon the old methods of cutting grass. They come in 

 at a season when the work of the farm is peculiarly laborious, when 

 labor is held at higher than the usual high rate of wages, when the 

 weather is often ficlde, either oppressively hot and trying to the phys- 

 ical system, or "catchy "and lowering, and they relievo the severest 

 strain uiDon the muscles at the time of harvest. Our reapers are at the 

 same time self-rakers. We can reap and gather from fifteen to twenty 

 acres a day in the most satisfactory manner. 



The horse hay-rake was invented at an earlier date than the mowing- 

 machine. It has been used in this country nearly seventy years, and the 

 saving by its use, sixty years ago, was estimated to be the labor of six 

 men in the same time. The work to be performed in raking hay, though 

 slow, is comparatively light. It does not require the exertion of a very 

 great amount of strength. It is just such kind of work where the ap- 

 plication of animal power becomes of the greatest advantage, because 

 it multiplies the eUlciency of the hand many times. The same thing is 

 noticed in the use of the hand-drills for sowing small seeds, the tedder 

 for turning and spreading hay, and in other similar operations. The 

 labor of a good horse-rake is equal to that of eight or ten men for the 

 same time, and from twenty to thirty acres a day can be gathered by a 

 single horse and driver, and that without overexertion. In the economy 

 of labor the horse-rake must bo regarded as second only in importance 

 to the mower and the renper, and is considered as essential upon the 

 farm as the plow itself. 



The tedder is another invention of still more recent date. With the 

 introduction of the mower, by which grass could bo cut so rapidly, and 

 the horse-rake, by which it could be gathered more rapidly than ever 

 before, there was still wanting some means by which it could be cured 

 proportionally quick, something to complete and round out the new 

 system, as it were, to make the revolution of the process of hay-making 

 entire. Various forms of the tedder had been patented and used in 

 England, but they were too heavy and cumbersome for American use, 

 and it was left to our own inventors to meet and overcome the mechan- 

 ical obstacles in the way of success here. This they have done, and we 

 liave so far econoniiaed labor in this direction, that the tedder is now 

 regarded as of nearly equal importance with the mower and the horse- 

 ralce. 



To these appliances for lightening and shortening the labors of hay- 

 ing, have been added many forms of the horse-fork for unloading and 

 mowing away hay in the barn or upon the stack. Few machines" have 

 10 a 



