MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 523 



During the last half century, no subject has more engaged 

 the attention of thinking, practical men, than the improvement 

 of machinery. Under this general head, may be properly 

 classed all the implements of farm husbandry. In our country, 

 more perhaps than in all the world beside, has this spirit of 

 improvement, this constant striving for something better, 

 wrought out results useful to man. Our government and in- 

 stitutions are well calculated for the development of individual 

 genius and enterprise ; and to this individual thinking and act- 

 ing, may be referred the glorious results which have been at- 

 tained. 



Genius is not pent up by arbitrary rules, edicts or censor- 

 ships, to break out here and there like an impetuous torrent, 

 but finds vent in all directions, and thus every department of 

 industry is benefited. It is seen in works of art, where great 

 natural obstacles are to be overcome. Combined with wealth, 

 it spans rivers whose perpendicular sides and deep abyss, have 

 mocked the daring and skill of former ages, or bids the moun- 

 tain yield a passage through its rocky bosom! The old machi- 

 nery, both of sea and land, stands back mute and motionless, 

 in astonishment at the modern queer ways of grinding, reaping, 

 threshing, pumping, pulling and wheeling, and all manner of 

 locomotion. 



Man's inventive genius never tires — the inventions of one 

 only exciting the genius of another to supply a defect or add 

 an improvement. It is this stimulus which has brought the 

 steam-engine to its present wonderful state of perfection, and 

 produced similar results with other machinery — with our reap- 

 ers, ploughs, harrows, and most of the implements of the farm. 



The quality of any work, in whatever art, depends mainly 

 on the tools with which it is wrought. The most skilful 

 shoe-maker, with a superior piece of leather, cannot make a 

 good boot, unless he have a good awl, good thread, and a good 

 knife ; and the ship builder not only needs the right kind of 

 timber, but the right kind of tools. It is so in every art. In 

 farming, good land will avail but little with a plough that does 

 its work in an imperfect manner, and the farmer would find 

 that he was far behind his neighbors both in quality of work 



