16 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



has a large estate is presumed to have capital corresponding 

 with his acres. He is neiw.r single-handed and alone. If sick 

 or disabled he has stout arms to depend upon in his hired men. 

 still to cultivate the crops or secure the harvests. If there is, 

 therefore, any class of farmers who can dispense with the mowing 

 machine, and not sensibly feel its absence, it is the larg-e 

 farmer. 



Such, however, is not the case with the small one. His suc- 

 cess centres in his judicious management, aided by his own 

 .muscular power. The hard jobs as well as the easy ones, and 

 the duties that incessantly come, late and early, are also his. 

 Perhaps he has passed middle life, and although in good health, 

 his cheek is farrowed and gray hairs sprinkle his temples. He 

 does not feel like cutting his acre before dinner ; stops to whet 

 his scytlie oftener than he did twenty years ago, and rests 

 longer in the shade. His mowing machine does not work as it 

 formerly did. He has plenty of luill but less poiv 67' . 



The mowing machine comes to such a farmer as a real bless- 

 ing. It enables him to keep up with his younger neighbors ; to 

 cut his crops in season and secure them without loss. He is 

 encouraged, because he can go on with his work as successfully 

 as he did in his younger and stronger days. 



I have for several years known an elderly farmer who could 

 not divest himself of tlie idea that machinerij is a plague on the 

 farm. So he has bent over the scytlie until he has acquired a 

 bend in his back that no medicament can cure. This year the 

 pressure was too strong for him. His prejudice gave way — 

 machinery was triumphant ; and he could be seen in the fresh 

 morning under his beautiful trees, feeding the poultry, or slowly 

 following his fine herd of cows on their way to pasture. He is 

 in no hurry ; sits twice as long at the breakfast table as he did 

 last year, and thinks his food tastes better than it did then. He 

 thinks he can earn more in the time he has to bestow upon his 

 stock, and his care of " little things," as he calls them, than he 

 did in tlie mowing field. Indeed, it seems, he says, as if he had 

 '' nothing to do." 



The tedders and horse-rakes, devised and constructed by your 

 own people, stand in the same relation. They are not only 

 labor-saving, but they are civilizers as well ; they tend to elevate 

 and refine, and lead the people on and upward in prosperity, 



