138 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



bolts broken or lost, 1 7 ; and one instance, of each sort, 

 of breaking a track-clearer, a pole, an axle, an iron 

 brace, a crank and a cog-wheel. What amount of 

 wreckage would have been disclosed, had the records 

 of the entire forty machines been sent in, can only be 

 conjectured; but what is given signifies that the mow- 

 ing machine, as a practical farming implement, had 

 just begun its career, and that skill was lacking in the 

 makers, and, no doubt, the operators also. 



The invention appears to have been sufficiently 

 perfected to work on the level, alluvial fields of the 

 West a few years earlier than upon the irregular land 

 surfaces of New England. A practical working ma- 

 chine had long been sought for. Attempts to produce 

 such are recorded in the pages of history, at various 

 dates, from the time of the Roman Empire, forward. 

 In a reference to the subject in one of the publications 

 of the society it is remarked, that the colonial legisla- 

 ture of Massachusetts granted a patent for a mowing 

 machine. In trusting to his memory the writer made 

 an error, but it was a very natural one ; for the patent 

 was granted for a "mowing engine." Although the 

 event ante-dates the existence of the society, a men- 

 tion of it will not be wholly out of place here, since it 

 relates directly to agriculture, and shows that inven- 

 tive talent, as applicable in that useful art, received 

 encouragement, in Massachusetts, almost from the 

 beginning. The case is nearly parallel to that given 

 among the anecdotes of Dr. Franklin. In an exigency 

 when Philadelphia was threatened with invasion, 

 more ordnance was needed. Knowing that the 

 Quakers of that city would not contribute, directly, 

 for the procuring of war material, he suggested to 

 them that a fund, already accumulated by them, for 

 the purchase of a fire engine, might be applied in buy- 



