MACHINERY IN AGRICULTURE. 29 



hundred and twenty in cutting the grain at harvest, 

 according to the kind of work done and the class of 

 machinery used for the particular operation. 



Scarcely less effective, in the aggregate, are the nu- 

 merous minor inventions whereby the labor of the 

 farm and the household have been saved. Imple- 

 ments of this kind make a large portion of the stock 

 in trade of the makers and venders of agricultural 

 wares. 



Our fathers, with all their boys and men servants, 

 had a full Winter's work in thrashing their wheat and 

 other small grain, in shelling their corn, etc., .and in 

 getting their small products to mill or market. But 

 now, after machinery has done its work in the field 

 and barn the iron horse drags the product over its 

 roads of steel, for hundreds and thousands of miles, at 

 less cost and in less time than it took our fathers to 

 transport the same to distances not greater than fifty 

 miles. Upon those roads where formerly hundreds 

 and thousands of men and teams were constantly em- 

 ployed in hauling products to market and goods to 

 the country nowhere now is a man or team so em- 

 ployed. Men and animals are released from that la- 

 bor ; new forces have taken up the work, guided and 

 controlled by comparatively few minds and hands. 

 Even our cattle and hogs are no longer required to 

 walk to the shambles ; the iron horse takes them to 

 the butcher ; labor saving processes slaughter them, 

 dress them, prepare their flesh for the market, for the 

 table, and stop only at mastication, deglutition, and 

 digestion. 



To-day one man with the aid of machinery will 



