232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



hnplemeiUs. 



From the coming of man bare-handed into the world, and 

 groping through centuries with a small supply of the most 

 unwieldy implements, — seemingly devised to produce the 

 smallest results at the greatest outlay of human musculai 

 effort, — we have machinery to do much of our work, en- 

 abling the farmer and his family to accomplish vastly more 

 than formerly, and relieving us of much of the hardship 

 which our fathers and mothers endured. 



The ancient plow is supposed to have been a crooked 

 stick, drawn by the hand of man. This implement has 

 passed through varied changes till we have in the varieties 

 offered us plows suited to all lanSs and conditions, and 

 which, in skilful hands, with less horse power than the older 

 plow required, will lay an unbroken furrow in almost any 

 soil. It would require too much time to speak of the won- 

 derful improvements made in the department of implements 

 in the last thirty years. 



Improvement in Lands. 



Well-cultivated farms are gradually becoming more pro- 

 ductive. An intermixing of soils, of which we have a won- 

 derful variety, is often done at trifling expense and to great 

 advantage. Lands once quite useless, and often considered 

 malarious, have, by drainage and cultivation, become our 

 most productive fields. The cultivation of the cranberry 

 alone has added hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 

 valuation of our Atlantic States, affording light and remu- 

 nerative employment to many who are not able to engage in 

 heavier work, and giving to the cultivator most satisfactory 

 returns for his investments. 



Long-cultivated lands, in the Old World and in the New, 

 under the light of modern discoveries and with better treat- 

 ment, have largely increased their product per acre. It has 

 been estimated by the highest authority of that day that in 

 the eleventh century the average yield of wheat per acre 

 was only six bushels; and we have the statement that " in 

 1390 one field of 57 acres produced only 366 bushels, and 

 but little more than this on an average of three years." The 



