USE OF REAPING-MACHINES. 161 



the constraction and cost and usefulness of a machine, 

 as the number and variety of each seen on the ground, 

 which shows what Implements are In most request, and In 

 what direction the practice of the farmer Is progressing. 



Ploughs, hay-rakes, forks, scythes, and cooking-stoves, 

 were very abundant, and many of them well and beauti- 

 fully made. American ploughs are now exported In 

 considerable numbers. At a subsequent period, a dealer 

 in Boston Informed me he had this season sold a hundred 

 of one of the varieties made In Massachusetts to a single 

 individual for sale In London. The potato grips and 

 forks, of various kinds, cut out of sheet-steel, were very 

 elastic, light, strong, and cheap. They seemed to leave 

 nothing In these articles to be desired. The cradle-scjthes 

 were also excellent : an active man was said to be able 

 to cut four to six acres of wheat a-day with them. That, 

 of course, would depend something upon the quantity of 

 straw upon the ground. 



Among the more novel instruments to me were the 

 corn-shellers and crushers. The former were very pretty 

 implements, and the larger kinds were said to be capable 

 of shelling two hundred bushels of Indian corn an hour. 



Of reaping-machines there were several varieties on 

 the ground, and several are actually in use in the West- 

 ern States. Hussey's, which I saw on the ground, was 

 said to cut twenty-five acres of wheat a-day. My friend, 

 Mr Stevens, who went round the yard with me, assured 

 me he had seen one of them cut sixteen acres. M'Cor- 

 mlck's machine, I suppose, must be a good one, from tlie 

 information here given me that as many as fifteen hun- 

 dred of them have been made at Chicago, in Illinois, this 

 last year, and sold for cutting wheat on the prairies of 

 the North-Western States, Of course, it is only on flat 

 lands that they can be advantageously employed. But 

 where labour is scarce, and unwooded prairie plenty, the 



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