FARM MACHINERY 37 



is only in very recent years that agricultural implement dealers 

 have ventured to send out any reaping machine without sending 

 also an expert operator to instruct the purchaser in its use. 1 



The two-horse corn cultivator began to come into use in 1861. 2 

 There are evidences, too, that other farm machines were coming 

 into use at that time. 3 But during the Civil War, from 1861 to 

 1864, the minds of inventors as well as of the working classes 

 were given to other matters. 4 



From 1866 onward, progress in the invention and use of agri- 

 cultural machinery has been by more rapid strides, yet even so 

 late as the year 1870 the editor of the "New American Farm 

 Book " 5 questioned the advisability of using the large threshing 

 machines because of the " great loss of grain and enormous waste 

 of straw " which were apt to result, and cautioned his readers 

 particularly against " employing itinerate threshers, who go about 

 the country to do work." For the " moderate farmer " he advised 

 the use of "a small single- or double-horse machine or hand 

 thresher" as the more economical and as permitting the work to 

 be done "in winter, where there is more leisure for it." 



To-day the American farmer who does not use a machine of 

 some sort is indeed far behind the times. The farmers of the Far 

 West have profited most of all. There, on the California and 

 Oregon farms, may be found fifty-horse-power traction engines in 

 operation, each one dragging " sixteen ten-inch plows, four six-foot 

 harrows, and a press drill for planting seed wheat. In this way 

 one such engine performs the triple work of plowing, harrowing, 

 and planting, all in one operation. The saving of time is so great 

 that one machine can plant with wheat, from fifty to seventy-five 

 acres in a single day, mounting hilly and rough ground just as 

 easily as when passing across dead levels." 



1 Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XI, p. 78. 



2 Illinois Farmer, 1861, p. 178. 



3 Eighth Census, Preliminary Report, p. 99. 



4 The Patent Office records through the period of the Civil War show a 

 marked decrease in the number of patents issued for agricultural implements and 

 machines and a very great increase in the number of patents issued for firearms 

 and other weapons of warfare. 



5 R. A. Allen, New American Farm Book (1870), p. 150. 



