FARM IMPLEMENTS. 233 



the important position that machinery now takes on a well- 

 managed farm. The show yard for implements occupies sev- 

 eral acres, regularly laid out, leaving wide spaces between the 

 rows of temporary buildings erected to contain them, so that 

 every opportunity is afforded for examining each article and to 

 learn the principles of its construction and its method of working. 



ESSEX. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



The exhibition of farming implements was much less exten- 

 sive than it ought to have been, and much less than was ex- 

 pected, considering the assurances given by those who had it 

 in their power to exhibit. But as " beggars should not be 

 choosers," we will make the best we can of what we saw. 

 There was an entire failure on the part of claimants to conform 

 to the conditions on which premiums were offered ; so that no 

 one will have any good reason to complain if no award is made 

 in their favor. 



Several mowers or machines for the cutting of grass by the 

 power of horses or oxen were presented. One by Ruggles & 

 Co., of Boston, a new machine, made by Ketchum, of Buffalo ; 

 one other of Ketchum's machines by W. F. Porter, of Bradford, 

 which had been used on his farm the past season ; and one by 

 Fisk Russell, of Boston, claiming to be an improvement on 

 Ketchum's. The committee took much pains in the course of 

 the season to witness the practical operation of these imple- 

 ments. On the farm of Mr. Waters, in Beverly, they saw this 

 operation more extensively than any where else. Mr. Waters 

 thus describes it: — 



" One of your committee used Ketchum's two-horse mower 

 the past season, and mowed over lifty acres with great satisfac- 

 tion. All the different varieties of English grass were cut with 

 it; and it operated well on all, especially on heavy grass of two 

 or more tons to the acre. It surprised many who witnessed 

 its operations to see with what facility it cut over uneven sur- 

 faces where before trial it was supposed it could not be made 

 to work. The horses used were common farm-horses, the pair 



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