238 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



double swivel plough aud the steel plough. The report of the 

 committee on the ploughing match has already given you the 

 result of the trial of these ploughs in the field. 



Among the churns exhibited was a thermometer churn, which 

 so regulates the temperature of the cream as to make butter in 

 the shortest time and of the best quality. Your committee 

 recommend this churn to the attention of our farmers, as being 

 superior to those in common use. 



Many other articles, such as corn shellers, fanning mills, car- 

 rot weeders, meat cutters, &c, were exhibited to your commit- 

 tee, and all seemed to them worthy of a more extended notice 

 than the proper limits of this report would allow. 



But the mowing machine, made and exhibited by the same 

 firm, deserves more than a brief and passing notice. 



With the exception perhaps of McCormick's reaper, your 

 committee are of the opinion that no more valuable improve- 

 ment in agricultural tools has been introduced to the public for 

 many years. A majority of the committee have seen experi- 

 ments made with the machine under circumstances well calcu- 

 lated to test its utility. They do not hesitate to say that in 

 the saving of labor, in the thoroughness and perfection and 

 rapidity with which the work is performed, it presents to the 

 farmers of this county advantages over the old method of mow- 

 ing which can hardly be over-estimated. An acre of land has 

 been well mown by the machine in thirty minutes — from forty- 

 five to sixty minutes is its ordinary work. With a single span 

 of horses, from ten to fifteen acres may be mown in the usual 

 working hours of one day. With a single horse, about two- 

 thirds of this amount of work can be accomplished. Your com- 

 mittee take the liberty to say, that, for ordinary work in the 

 county, machines with a single horse will be found sufficiently 

 effectual. Wc are informed by the manufacturers that three 

 hundred of these machines have been sold in New England 

 during the present Beason, and that the reports from fare 

 who have u^^d them are highly favorable to their utility. 



And in this connection the committee desire to say a word 

 in favor of the hay-making and spreading machine made and 

 exhibitedby Ruggles, Nourse, .Mason, <£ Co. This improvement 

 is of recent date, and may have been suggested by the one of 



