32 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



But perhaps the most important of modem agricultural 

 inventions are the grain-harvesters, the reapers, the mowers, 

 the threshers and the horse-ral^es. Tlie sickle, Avliicli was in 

 ahnost universal use till within a very recent date, is un- 

 doubtedly one of the most ancient of all our farming imple- 

 ments. Reaping by the use of it was always slow and 

 laborious, while from the fact that many of our grains would 

 ripen at the same time, there was a liability to loss before 

 they could be gathered, and practically there was a vastly 

 greater loss from this cause than there is at the present time. 



THE CROWNING GLORY. 



It is not, therefore, too much to say that the successful 

 introduction of the reaper into the grain-fields of this country 

 has added many millions of dollars to the value of our annual 

 harvests, by enabling us to secure the whole product, and by 

 making it possible for the farmer to increase the area of his 

 wheat-fields, with a certainty of being able to gather the crop. 

 Nothing was more surprising to the mercantile community of 

 Europe than the fact that we could continue to exjDort such 

 vast quantities of wheat and other breadstuffs through the 

 midst of the late rebellion, with a million or two of able- 

 bodied men in arms. The secret of it was the general use of 

 farm-machinery. The number of two-horse reapers in opera- 

 tion throughout the country, in the harvest of 1861, performed 

 an amount of work equal to about a million of men. The 

 result was that our capacity for farm production was not 

 materially disturbed. 



The credit of the practical application of the principles 

 involved in this class of machines undoubtedly belong 

 our own ingenious mechanics ; for though somewhat similar 

 machines were invented in England and Scotland many years 

 ago, they had never been proved to be efficient on the field, 

 and had never gained the confidence of the farmers, even in 

 their neighborhood ; while the patent issued to Obed Hussey, 

 of Cincinnati, in 1833, and another issued to McCormick, of 

 Virginia, in 1834, not only succeeded in the trials to which 

 they were subjected, but gained a wide and permanent reputa- 

 tion. Many patents had been issued in this country pre- 

 viously, the first having been as early as 1803, but they had 



