j^50 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAT. 



in the hurry of the working season, have to be tolerated. It 

 is economy to keep them, as they should be, in order ; and a 

 day or two, at the close of the season, in a general picking up, 

 mending, painting, oiling, and scrubbing, will save many a 

 dollar, which will be required to buy new implements in place 

 of tho.^e ruined by neglect. 



We have alluded to the wonderful development which me- 

 chanical ingenuity has wrought in our agriculture. The mower, 

 the reaper, and the thresher, are fit types of the ever restless 

 and progressive spirit of the present age. A few, wedded to 

 old prejudices and to early customs, may resist them as innova- 

 tions, for a time, but their language is too powerful and per- 

 suasive to be long unheeded. They promise for us a glorious 

 future, in which they will accomplish, for us and for our coun- 

 try, triumphs no less grand than the triumph of arms, fo^* they 

 develop the means of supporting the millions of human beings, 

 which the implements of war can only destroy. 



In the early ages of the world, men dug the earth, and sowed 

 the seed, and reaped the grain ; but while the myriads toiled, 

 without aspiration or hope, civilization was confined to the few, 

 the mechanic arts languished, and the gigantic forces of nature 

 waited the hand of a master to call them into beneficent ac- 

 tivity. The river rolled on its resistless current for more than 

 a hundred years after the Christian era without turning a wheel. 

 The winds swept over the hills of Europe till the eleventh cen- 

 tury, without giving motion to a single mill. The mighty 

 power of steam lay hidden. 



