1869. 



NEW ENGLAND F.^EISIER. 



563 



thresher and rake, with some improvements 

 on the cultivator." We ai-e told that the 

 plough, ^hovel and hoe, are the same as our 

 fathers used, and we must sweat as our fathers 

 did in u.-ing thtm. This assertion, I think, 

 will rather attonith some of our farmers and 

 agricultural implement dealers. Before he 

 delivers another address qu agriculture, it 

 would he well for him to step into some agri- 

 cultural warehouse, if he has not time to 

 visit our farms, and examine the gang 

 ploughs, which turn some half dozen furrows 

 at a time, while the operator rides in a cush- 

 ioned spring scat, simply guiding his team ; 

 or the single steel ploughs of recent inven- 

 tion, and see if there has not been some im- 

 provement over the ploughs our fathers used. 



If he is notsatislied, 1 should like to plough 

 with him at the next Cattle Fair ; he to have 

 the old plough that his father used, and I to 

 have my choice cf modern ploughs, and see 

 who will get the premium. As to the sweat. 

 I venture the assertion that if the holder of 

 the old plough don't sweat as much as the 

 holder of the new one, the teavi that draws 

 the old plough will sweat enough more to 

 make up the ditrerence. 



I think it would he well for the General to 

 look at the tedders, which enable the farmer 

 to shake up and turn his hay more expedi- 

 titiously than ten men could do it, and in a 

 better manner, while all the operator has to 

 do is to sit in a very comfortable seat and 

 guide the horse ; then examine the corn 

 planter, which plants from two to six acres 

 per day, the operator riding in a comfortable 

 manner, and sui)plying the hopper with corn ; 

 the horse-hoes, elfiicting a great saving of 

 labor ; the feed cutters, the corn shellers, the 

 stone diggers, stump pullers, ditching ma- 

 chines, grain drills, horse powers, which en- 

 able the farmer to saw his wood, cut the feed 

 for his cattle, turn his grind stone, churn his 

 cream, pump his water, &c. But for these 

 and other improved implements and machines 

 which have been introduced upon the farm, 

 the soldiers in our late army, and the consu- 

 mers now in our cities and villages, could not 

 be fed. 



The speaker further remarked that no im- 

 provtment has been introduced upon the farm 

 that would cause one spear of grass or one 

 blade of coin to grow where it was not before 

 This wdl be news to some of our intelligent 

 farmers ; especially to those on farms where 

 twenty 3 ears ago not live tons of English hay 

 were grown, but which now produce lifty tons, 

 the Lnd being cultivated by these new im- 

 proved implements, while the farmers put in 

 practice the true science of cultivatmg and 

 dressing the land. Candor, 



— A small amount of lime mixed with wheat 

 that has acquired a mubty smell by having been 

 slightly heated, will sweeten without injuring the 

 wheat. 



W^OOL AND WOOIiEN GOODS, 



There was a gathering of the wool and wool- 

 en interests at the exhibition of the American 

 Institute in New York last week, at which 

 Hon E. B. Bigelow, President of the Nation- 

 al Wool jManufacturers' Association, deliv- 

 ered an address embodying the folluwin j facts : 



The annual value of the wool ui.uiufaclures 

 in the United Srates, and ot th )se manu- 

 factures of which wool is a component part, 

 is not less than $175,000,000. Of tliese 

 goods, more than four fifths are made from 

 American wools. The coarse cirpet wools, 

 which are not grown here at all, the worsted 

 combing wools and the fine clothing wools 

 which are grown by us only in limited quanti- 

 ties, go to make up the rest. 



A great advance has been made in woolen 

 manufactures in a comparatively short time. 

 Ten years ago we attempted scarcely anything 

 beyond common goods of the coarser kind. 

 Now we manufacture almost every variety of 

 woolen fabrics in general use. The annual 

 consumption of woolen goods in the Union 

 amounts in round nuaabers to $240,000,000 — 

 of which $65,000,000 is imported and $175,- 

 000,000 is of domestic manufacture. 



The condition of our wool industry in 1868, 

 as compared with the years 1850 and 1860, is 

 shown by the following tabular statement : 



3830, I860. 1363. 



Items. lbs. Lbs. Lbs. 



Pounds of Wool grown, 52,516,959 60,5;],343 177,ut)O,0OO 

 L'ollcirH. Uoll ^e. 1) llirs. 

 Value of wool imported, l,68i,691 4,812,153 3,S)15,262 

 Value cf Wool mauufac- 



turts importrid, 17,151,509 37,937,190 S2,4C9,759 



Value of O.jmestlcWool 



manuf,.ctures, 45,281,764 68,865,953 175,000,000 



This shows conclusively that it is not b}'^ the 

 impoi'tation of foreign goods that our market 

 for wool and woolens is depressed, the value 

 of imported woolens for 186:S being five and a 

 half millions of dollars less than it was for 

 1869. Most evidently the gnat cause of the 

 present depression is excessive home produc- 

 tion of one kind of merino wool. As to the 

 present tariff on wool and woolen goods, Mr, 

 Bigelow stated : 



•Tc was at a conference of leading manufac- 

 turers and growers of wool from all parts of 

 the United States, and after full considera- 

 tion and discussion, that the p; inciple wjijh 

 underlies our present tariffon wools and woolens 

 was unanimously adopted. It is, in fact, only a 

 clearer and stronger expression of the idea on 

 which the (so-called) Morrill Tariff cf 1861 

 was partly based. It aims to give equal pro- 

 tection to him who raises and him who works 

 up the raw material. It tends directly to rec- 

 oncile great interests, which had been falsely 

 regarded as antagonistic. Unless these views 

 are fallacious, it is just as much the duty of a 

 nation to protect its own industry against the 

 injurious effects of foreign competition as it 

 is to provide the means of defending its soil 

 and its homes against the aggressions of open 

 war," — Ohio Farmer. 



