AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 235 



leather, lime-buruers, men for iron works, mining, and for 

 glass-making. 



Man}^ of these men were accustomed to the comforts, 

 and even what were considered luxuries, in that era of civil- 

 ization. Their primary wants in their new homes were those 

 of subsistence, shelter and clothing ; these could only be sup- 

 plied by their own energy in subduing the unbroken forest 

 and the virgin soil, which labors again required for their 

 rudest exercise the implements of husbandry and other me- 

 chanical appliances, and these they began to shape for them- 

 selves as soon as the severest emergencies had passed, and 

 the tools brought with them began to fail and be insufficient. 

 To obtain the means of ameliorating their condition, the col- 

 onists, whose only wealth was the strong arm and the iron 

 will, were forced to rely mainly on their own unaided exer- 

 tions. This was particularly the case with the first settlers 

 of New England, whose expatriation was a voluntary one in 

 behalf of their principles, which left them without that sup- 

 port and patronage which watched over the more speculative 

 enterprise of the earlier and wealthier colonists on the more 

 southern territory. 



The improvement in agricultural machinery during the 

 first century and more of our existence, though much dis- 

 cussed and greatly needed, was slow. The early settlers 

 were able, with such tools as they had, to raise and harvest 

 crops enough for their support and some for export, but the 

 inventive and mechanical genius of the new country was 

 more absorbed in building houses, mills, factories, tanneries, 

 glass-houses and ships, for shelter, clothing, and transport- 

 ing from the country those products that would bring back 

 into the country such necessaries and luxuries of life as 

 could only come from foreign ports, than in devising easier 

 methods of cultivating the land and seeming the products 

 of the soil. 



But the advance in the agricultural development of this 

 country, following manufactures and commerce, has for the 

 past seventy-five years been very great, and is undoubtedly 

 due largely to the creation and perfection of farming tools, 

 implements and machines. The published transactions, dur- 

 ing the first quarter of this century, of " The Massachusetts 



