A HUNDRED YEAES' PROGRESS. 291 



in the economy of feeding, in the increase of thrift secured, and the 

 positive advantage to be derived in the manure. There is a difference 

 of opinion upon this point, to be sure, but notwithstandiug that, the 

 use of some form of the hay and straw cutter has become nearly uni- 

 versal, and is generally regarded as quite indispensable upon most well- 

 conducted farms. Machines for this purpose are made to bo Avorked 

 by hand, upon small farms, and by horse or steam power upon larger 

 ones, where they are capable of reducing to chaff a ton and a half of 

 hay or straw per hour. 



Eoot and vegetable cutters have been brought to equal perfection, and 

 where large stocks of sheep and cattle are kept, and vegetables are 

 raised for winter feeding, as they are at the present time upon all well- 

 managed farms, the root-cutter is indispensable. By its use the farmer 

 is now enabled to cut potatoes and other vegetables line enough to feed 

 to sheep, at the rate of a bushel in less than thirty seconds, by simple 

 hand-power. 



Nothing need be said of the innumerable variety of churus, hand 

 cider-mills, the contrivances for gaining power in lifting stones and 

 pulling stumps, ditching-machines, rollers, and a thousand other labor- 

 saving machines which mechanical ingenuity. has added to the stock of 

 farm-tools, till the value of farming implements and machinery was re- 

 ported, by the census of 1870, to be at least $330,878,429. The same 

 was reported, in 1860, at $246,118,141, and in 1850 at only $151,587,638, 

 a gain in twenty years of $185,21)0,791. 



As evidence that the mechanical genius of the country is not yet ex- 

 hausted, but is as untiring as ever, it maybe stated that the patents issued 

 for improvements in agricultural implements and machinery for the year 

 1872 exceeded one thousand, of which thirty-six were for rakes, one hun- 

 dred and sixty for hay and grain harvesters and attachments, one hun- 

 dred and seventy-seven for seed planters and drills, thirty for hay and 

 straw cutters, ninety for cultivators, seventy-three for bee-hives, ninety 

 for churns, one hundred and sixty for j)lowsand attachments; and that, 

 the annual manufacture of agricultural implements amounts to over 

 $52,000,000. 



Having alluded briefly to the v\'onderful progress made in the im- 

 provement of the implements of the farm, by means of which the pos- 

 sibility of production has been so largely increased, let us consider for 

 a moment the practical results attained. 



Indian corn has always been regarded as the great staple crop of the 

 country. It is a plant of American origin. In the universality of its uses, 

 and its intrinsic importance to mankind, no other grain can be compared 

 with it. Its flexibility of organization is such that it readily adapts 

 itself to every variety of climate and soil, from the warmest regions of 

 the torrid zone to the short summers of Canada. The early settlers, as 

 we have seen, found it in cultivation by the Indians, and jt soon became 

 the leading crop throughout the country, the crop upon Avhich the 

 colonists relied, not only for food, but for sale and exchange for other 

 necessaries of life. It soon became a prominent article of export, 

 especially from the Middle States, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 

 Delaware, and, to some extent, from the States farther south. Thus, 

 in 1748, South Carolina exported 39,308 bushels, and in 1754 10,428 

 bushels. In 1755 there were exported from Savannah 600, and in 1770 

 13,598 bushels. And so, in 1753, North Carolina exported 61,580 bush- 

 els; an€l the exports from Virginia, before the Eevolution, sometimes 

 amounted to 600,000 bushels a year. The total amount exported from 

 all the colonies, in 1770, was 578,349 bushels. These figures are not 



