NEW MACHINERY. 315 



should have seemed unattractive to intelligent youth during 

 the years gone by. 



Flailing wheat, shelling corn and splitting rails practically 

 went out of vogue with the last generation, but it was only 

 yesterday that the slow and laborious axe was laid aside for 

 the power saw. With such a saw, which almost any farmer 

 may now afford, he can cut up enough wood during half a 

 dozen rainy days to keep the kitchen stove going for six 

 months. If there are trees to be felled, this is done by means 

 of a saw. If there are stumps to be removed, it is done 

 by a stump puller or with dynamite. The axe is indeed still 

 found upon every farm, but the axe as a universal tool and 

 as an instrument and representative of prodigious labor is 

 nearly as non-existent as the flail. In short, everywhere 

 and for manifold purposes machinery is invading the farm 

 to the saving of human exertion. Doubtless to many farmers 

 of the old school the new methods fail or fall short in many 

 attractions found in the old order of things. "I don't like," 

 it is facetiously reported that one said recently, "I don't like 

 to set on a traction engine to do my plowin'. I want to have 

 my two fists a holt uv the plow-handles an' feel as if I was 

 a rippin' uv her up myself. I want to straddle the clods an' 

 cuss the horses an' dodge the stumps, an' in other ways 

 work my body as well as my head." All of which reminds 

 one of the enjoyment which Daniel Webster is said to have 

 expressed in regard to working rough land with his big plow 

 and four yoke of oxen. "When I was a young feller," con- 

 tinued the farmer above alluded to, "I most gen'rally won* 

 out my overalls at the knees, an' my calluses was all on my 

 hands. Now I take notus when ther's any patchin' to be done 

 it's the seat uv a man's breeches, an' the rest uv the wear 



