THE APPLICATION OF SCIENCE TO AGEICULTURE. 19 



Whitney's gin was able to clean nearly 200 pounds a day, and the 

 great saving in labor cost thus effected at once placed the occupation 

 of cotton planting on a profitable basis, in addition to giving all the 

 world much cheaper clothes. Even to-day Whitney's gin is essen- 

 tially the same machine it was when it left his hand more than 100 

 years ago. 



Practically all advances in machinery used in growing cereals 

 have been made by Americans, The great Thomas Jefferson planned 

 a number of improvements to the plow which others carried into 

 effect. William Manning, of New Jersey, was gi-anted a patent for 

 a mowing machine in 1830. The reaper was invented by both Obed 

 Hussey, of Maryland, and Cyrus McCormick, of Virginia, the former 

 taking out his patent in 1833 and the latter in 1834. In 1837 John 

 Deere, of Moline, 111., invented the steel plow, the first one he turned 

 out being made of an old saw. This improvement greatly aided in 

 settling the prairie country of the West, for the pioneer was thus 

 supplied with a plow which slipped through the fine, sticlry soil of 

 that country as no other plow would. 



Scarcely less important, from a money-saving standpoint, than 

 the invention of these machines, were the corn-planter and the two- 

 horse cultivator, which came into use about the same time. By 

 means of these effective implements the farmer's ability to raise big 

 crops was greatly increased, as the machines enabled him to use horses 

 in performing every part of the work of growing corn, except the 

 one operation of husking. 



Still other Americans have invented the sheaf-binder, which in- 

 cludes a mechanism that can perform the feat of tying a knot auto- 

 matically ; the steam thrasher, which does the work of over 100 men 

 Avith flails; and machines which reduce from 11 hours to 1^ hours 

 the time necessary for a man to cut and cure a ton of hay. 



The American inventors of agricultural implements have done 

 more to make the United States a rich and powerful nation than 

 all the statesmen and all the soldiers since our national life began. 

 If it were not for them, and those who invented the steam engine, 

 steamboat, locomotive, and electric engines, the buffalo and the red 

 man would still possess the vast country between the Mississippi and 

 the Kockies; Chicago would be a sleepy little lake-shore city; St. 

 Louis, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas City, and Omaha 

 would be frontier settlements; New York would be smaller than 

 Marseilles. For it was machinery that made it possible for us to 

 become so quickly the greatest country in the world. After the crops 

 came the railroads, with the railroads came the population, and with 

 the population came industry and commerce. 



