176 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



purchased separately. The whole collection of ploughs presented by 

 Noiirse, Mason & Co., as well as those presented in the other collec- 

 tions, was one of the leading features of the exhibition, and marks, 

 perhaps, more distinctly than any thing else, the march of improve- 

 ment in agriculture. 



A series of ploughs with iron beams, presented by Dickerman and 

 Stevens, of Taunton, and invented by Ricb, is worthy of notice. In 

 these ploughs the moving power is applied near to the work, and in 

 certain descriptions of soil they do their work with great ease and 

 efficacy. The smaller sizes, especially the horse ploughs, are man- 

 aged with much ease and convenience. 



Iron beam ploughs, which were highly finished, and which have 

 the peculiar advantage of Rich's ploughs, viz. : that they bring the 

 power near the work, were presented by Vankerman & Co. Their 

 form of mouldboard is found in Nourse, Mason & Co.'s collection. 



In the union of strength with lightness, in the construction of 

 mowers and reapers, it is not to be supposed that perfection has yet 

 been reached. It is but a few years since this machine was intro- 

 duced, and the improvements that have been already made warrant 

 the belief, that a much higher degree of perfection will soon be 

 attained than has as yet been reached in even the most highly fin- 

 ished machines that have been manufactured. This is a machine of 

 almost inestimable importance, both to the grain producer and the 

 grain consumer. It enables the former to gather harvests of unlimited 

 amoimt, while it materially rapduces the price to the latter. 



As the cotton gin, in years gone by, created a source of boundless 

 wealth to the planters of the South, so the reaper renders possible 

 the production of an amount of grain that can be reckoned only by 

 millions of bushels, and Avhich is increasing in a ratio that almost 

 exceeds belief. In proportion to the high cost of manual labor will 

 be the estimation in which this machine will be held. It is of 

 scarcely less value when used as a mower than when used as a reaper. 

 The number and variety already in the market is great, and annually 

 increasing, showing that the demand for them is great, and that per- 

 fection has not yet been reached. Each has its points of excellence. 

 Some are constructed wholly of iron and steel ; wood enters largely 

 into the construction of others. The various excellences of each 

 have not, as yet, been combined in any one. The machines of Manny 

 and Heath seem, to your committee, to combine more of the proper- 

 ties desirable in a mowing machine, than any others which they 

 examined. Each of them affords a basis upon Avhich improvements 

 may be made, until a high degree of perfection shall be reached. 



An iron mower, presented by J. W. Thompson, of Greenfield, 



