NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



culties in the way of securing distinct and intelligi- 

 ble reports. But of what possible use is a premi- 

 um or reward when nobody knows why, or for 

 what, it is awarded ? 



WHAT I HAVE SEEN OF NEW AGRI- 

 CULTURAL TOOLS. 



In a recent number of "L^fe Illustrated" a pa- 

 per published by Messrs. Fowler and Wells, 

 New York, we find an article which goes to show 

 that there are, after all, some people in this world 

 beside captains and generals, ministers, plenipoten- 

 tiary, and honorable members of this or that fid- 

 dlestick society : — people who profess nothing, but 

 have accomplished more for mankind than all the 

 thousands whose constant anxiety it is to "fill the 

 speaking trump of future fame." 



The article to which we allude was written soon 

 after the great agricultural exhibition at Philadel- 

 phia, where there was probably the largest and 

 best collection of agricultural machines and imple- 

 ments that has ever been presented at one time 

 and place. The writer commences by asking the 

 following significant questions : 



Reader: What have you seen, heard, or learned. In all 

 your life's experience, that would be of service to mankind.' 

 Have you invented or discovered anything new? 



Yes, I have seen some things during some of my 

 late experience of life that, if known to my fellow- 

 men, would be of vast service to mankind, for they 

 reach back to first principles, and touch the arts 

 of life to make life easier ; that is, make the pro- 

 ductions of earth that enaWes civilized man to sus- 

 tain life in a state of civilization, easier to obtain. 

 Without these arts — without the aid of machinery 

 to enable man to increase the productions of earth, 

 earth's inhabitants could not live ; for tiiere are but 

 two modes by which men are fed — one comes from 

 the art of the hunter, and the other from the art 

 of the husbandman. 



AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 



This, then, is one of the things that I have 

 learned — that Broadway and Fifth Avenue could 



tent have just been granted for the discovery and 

 application of a principle based upon accurate cal- 

 culations in mathematical 



SCIEXCE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MOULD BOARD. 



Where others have left off, Knox has begun, and 

 now shows that a mould-board — a crooked, curving, 

 twisting section of a screw, is, when scientifically 

 constructed, a series of planes ; and no matter how 

 long or wide it is, if it is rightly constructed, a 

 perfectly straight rule will touch and make a close 

 fitting joint when laid down in the direction of the 

 furrow slice. This, then, is a discovery that will 

 benefit mankind, if mankind will think ; that a 

 mould-board of a plow is simply a section of a 

 screw ; that the operation of turning the earth is 

 just that of the screw ; and the screw, as all know 

 who think, is nothing but a combination, or rather, 

 succession of inclined planes, of easy ascent, and 

 every one of which in its section is as straight and 

 true as the inclined planes up the mountain side, 

 by which the ponderous engine ascends to the sum- 

 mit. ■ So ascends the earth from the sharp wedge 

 point of the plow, turning its regular screw twist 

 half way, or entirely over, by which every particle 

 of earth is disintegrated from its fellow. 



It is a discovery, then, worthy of the age of in- 

 ventions, that every variation from 1 he form of true 

 planes, such as convex or swells in the mould-board, 

 are just as inconsistent as it would be to make 

 knobs or swells upon a screw auger, with a view to 

 facilitate the ascent of the chips. 



SUBSOIL PLOWS. 



I have not yet done with discoveries in plows. 

 The improvement of Mapes, as carried into effect 

 by Nourse, Mason and Knox, upon the subsoil 

 plow, entitles him to the rank of a discoverer — a 

 benefactor — for he has enabled the farmer to do an 

 important work with one yoke of oxen easier than 

 he did before with three yoke. This plow creeps 

 along under the hard pan below the soil, produc- 

 ing exactly the same effect as does the mole ; 

 lifting up and crumbling the earth above, and leav- 

 ing a tunnel below for the passage of water or air. 

 It is a great invention — it makes two blades of 

 grass grow where but one grew before. 



MICHIG.VN PLOW, AND DIGGING-MACHINE. 



