MR. moseley's address. 9 



Among the great improvements which have been made in 

 tools and implements of husbandry, the plough may be mentioned 

 as an instance. Such have been the great improvements in this 

 article, within a few years, that I am told one yoke of cattle 

 will do the work, in one day, which formerly required two yoke, 

 and will do the work much better. Our ancestors used the flail 

 to thrash cut their grain, but modern invention has produced a 

 machine, moved by horse power, and thrashes out as much grain 

 in one day, as one man can thrash in ten days with a flail. 



A rake has been invented, moved by horse power. It is said 

 that by this horse-rake one man with a horse and boy will put 

 the hay into winrovvs as fast as eight men can put it into cocks, after 

 it is raked. Among the wonders of the age steam has been ap- 

 plied with surprising success in propelling vessels on water and 

 wagons on land, but in my wildest flights of imagination, I had 

 never conceived the idea that steam could be applied to agricul- 

 tural purposes. Yet Professor Rafinesque of Philadelphia, a gen- 

 tleman of great scientific attainments, advertises for farmers his 

 steam plough, by which six furrows are ploughed at once, an'd 

 which he says will in one day perform the work of a single team 

 for a week, and in the best manner. What a delightful con- 

 templation. How wonderful is man ! May we not indulge the 

 hope, that the day is not remote, when all agricultural opera- 

 tions will be performed by steam. 



Those persons who have been accustomed to follow the same 

 course of husbandry, which their fathers and generations before 

 them adopted, have favored the opinion, that very little is to be 

 learned upon this subject. It is difficult to make them compre- 

 hend, that this art involves principles as extensive and as hard to 

 be understood as any other art which can occupy the attention of 

 men. They have never turned their attention to the great im- 

 provements in agricultural implements. The plough which 

 their fathers used did very well, and they think it still does very 

 well. They have never considered that agriculture is an impor- 

 tant branch of Natural Philosophy, nor have they ever attempt- 

 ed to understand tlie nature of different soils, the economy of 

 manures, and the adaptation of particular kinds of manure to 

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