FAKM IMPLEMENTS. 239 



With regard to accidents 1 have been very fortunate, having 

 broken but one section of the knives in the season. I have been 

 very much surprised at its little liability to get out of repair or 

 so dull as to need grinding, having cut sixty acres with once 

 grinding the knives. 



The great improvement in this machine over the old one, 

 consists in its castor wheel, which takes all weight off the horses' 

 necks, when it is broke up to move from place to place. It is 

 also so constructed that if it is considered necessary in cutting 

 lodged grass, the back can be removed in a few minutes, and 

 leave the bare knife-bar like most of the other machines in use. 

 In that case we must dispense with the use of the reel, which I 

 consider almost indispensable in going with the wind of a windy 

 day ; otherwise the driver must carry a long stick to poke the 

 grass back as it is cut. 



Another improvement is in the quicker motion of the knives, 

 enabling it to start in the grass without fail, as certainly as 

 some other macliines did fail to start in grass, as your chairman 

 saw at the first trial of mowing machines at the Pickman farm 

 in South Salem, and I regret very much that the committee 

 were not then present to view that operation, and see the ease 

 with which one of my horses on the two-horse mower cut a 

 quarter of an acre of grass, and also whether it was as the 

 spectators said, the best cut piece of grass on the field. 



SWAMPSCOTT, Nov. 10, 1858. 



Statement of George B. Loring. 



Danforth's Mower. — I take the earliest opportunity which 

 an unusual pressure of duties would allow, to make a statement 

 to the committee on agricultural implements, of the Essex 

 Agricultural Society. I enter two machines for premium, viz. : 

 Danforth's Mowing Machine, constructed by J. W. Thompson 

 of Greenfield, Mass., and a tedder, purchased in England by 

 R. S. Fay, for the Massachusetts Society for Promotion of 

 Agriculture. 



Of the mowing machine, I would say that it comes very near 

 the fulfilment of my ideas of what such an instrument should 

 be. I conceive that agricultural machinery should be simple, 

 light, easily managed, and strong. These qualities should be 



