THE WOEK SYSTEMATIZED. 35 



confess, have been gloriously won by Americans, and this 

 achievement cannot be looked upon with indifference, as it 

 plainly foreshadows the ultimate destiny of the New World." 



ANOTHER ADVANCE STEP. 



Five years after the Geneva trial there was a general desire 

 to have another on a scale of magnificence that should bring 

 out all the prominent reapers and mowers of the country. 

 The United States Agricultural Society accordingly instituted 

 a national trial at Syracuse, New York, in 1857. More than 

 forty mowers and reapers entered, and were brought to test 

 on the field. It Avas soon apparent that striking improve- 

 ments had been made since the meeting at Geneva. The 

 draught had been very materially lessened in nearly all the 

 machines, thouo-h the side-draught was still too 2:reat in some 

 of them. Most of the machines could now cut fine and thick 

 grass w^ithout clogging, and there was a manifest progress in 

 them, but of the nineteen that competed as mowers, only 

 three could start in fine grass without backing to get up 

 speed. The well-known Buckeye, patented only the year be- 

 fore, won its first great triumph here, and carried off the first 

 prize. 



Every year now added to the list of new inventions and 

 improvements. In 1859 the Wood mower was invented, and 

 soon gained a high reputation. By the year 1864 there were 

 no less than a hundred and eighty-seven establishments in the 

 country devoted to the manufacture of reapers and mowers, 

 many of them very extensive, and completely furnished with 

 abundant power, machinery and tools of the most perfect 

 description, while the work had become wisely and thoroughly 

 systematized. The people directly sustained by these facto- 

 ries exceeded sixty thousand, while the value of their annual 

 product exceeded $15,000,000, the number of machines 

 amounting to one hundred thousand. 



SOMETHING NEAR PERFECTION. 



Nine years after the Syracuse trial, another exhibition of 

 mowers and reapers, national in its character, was held at 

 Auburn, New York, under the auspices of the Ncav York 

 State Society, in July, 1866. The number of mowers that 



