240 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



possessed particularly by a mowing machine, the use of which 

 comes at a season when the accumulation of business on a farm 

 requires great rapidity of execution, and when it is impossible 

 to be very fastidious in our selection of labor. Such a machine 

 should be capable of doing its work on smooth land and rough, 

 with or without an expert driver or machinist, with good 

 horses and bad ones, in light grass and heavy, and without the 

 exercise of great skill on the part of the driver, or the outlay 

 of great strength or speed by the team. In this Avay alone 

 can it be made really an economical and profitable appendage to 

 a farm. Our lands are not lawns, and we cannot afford to 

 make them so. It is impossible for us to hire skilful men, at 

 a price within the limits of a farmer's means. Every farmer 

 cannot expect to be able to devote himself throughout the 

 haying season to a mowing machine. Neither can he afford to 

 purchase a pair of horses well broken to this work alone. 



I do not mean to say that the Danforth machine is perfect. 

 But I can say that I have seen it work on my farm under cir- 

 cumstances which would have foiled any other machine 1 have 

 ever seen used. My driver had never used a machine of the 

 kind until I set him at work with this one. My horses are 

 young and inexperienced. My grass was heavy, matted at tlie 

 bottom and much of it lodged. My land is very rough. And 

 yet the machine which I enter for premium performed its work 

 perfectly well amidst all these obstacles. In draft it is very 

 light and easy — never having worried my horses at all. It 

 never clogs unless the knives are plunged into sods and roots, 

 and even then, but seldom. It requires no clearing board, and 

 cuts equally well in fallen and standing grass. It leaves the 

 field smooth and without any "mane" between the swaths. 

 It is easily managed, is conveniently sharpened, and can be 

 driven against obstacles almost with impunity. I have used it 

 in cutting my second crop, and found it as serviceable as in 

 the first. 



A one-horse machine of the same invention has been used 

 by me, and may be considered almost invaluable on a small 

 farm. 



The tedder I have used very extensively in spreading my 

 hay. It is an English machine, strong, and rather heavy in its 

 construction — but beautifully adapted to the work for which it 



