3 i2 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



What would the great Webster say if he could lay his eye 

 upon the plow of our day, with its graceful outline, its sci- 

 entific design, its steel share, its cast moldboard polished to 

 reduce friction until it shines in the sun like the helmet of 

 an emperor? What would he say of the disc plow designed 

 still further to reduce friction, consisting substantially of a 

 series of circular knives, cutting the soil like cheese as it is 

 drawn across the face of the field ? What would he say of the 

 whole wonderful line of agricultural implements now to be 

 found in our markets and upon our farms the self-binders 

 that gather up a sheaf of wheat or of corn or of any other 

 grain, hug it into a compact bundle, pass a piece of twine 

 around its center, draw it into place, tie it securely into -a 

 hard knot, cut the string and throw the bundle aside, and all 

 this with the rapidity of the passing seconds of time? 



But rapidity, and therefore economy, is not all that has 

 been secured to the tillers of the soil by the advent and per- 

 fection of farming implements. There is hardly a machine 

 made the nature of the work of which requires it to move 

 over the fields but is provided with a seat a spring seat, often 

 enabling the husbandman to ride if he wishes to do so. 

 Consider what this means to the farmer and to the farmer's 

 boy. But recently it was the necessity of farmers to trudge 

 all day over the yielding soil, their limbs grown heavy before 

 the sun had reached meridian, and at evening they stumbled 

 as they struck the beaten path leading to their homes. How 

 pathetic is this authentic report: "To follow the team in the 

 furrow day after day is very tiresome work, and has the 

 effect of giving the boy a heavy, awkward gait by stiffening 

 the lower limbs, a condition from which he seldom, if ever, 

 recovers." Small wonder that the profession of farming 



