42 Reports of Committees. 



improved construction. In 1822 a reaper was brought forward by a Mr. Munn of 

 Scotland, with which one horse could reap ten acres in ten hours. 



In 1830 a Mowing Machine was produced, and soon after a mower and combined 

 reaper is spoken of. From that time to the present day, reapers and mowers of in- 

 numerable forms have come into existence, and some have proved a perfect failure, 

 others a perfect success. How often it is asked, what reaper and mower is best ? 

 No one is able to answer the question satisfactorily. Some have taken the first pre- 

 miums at our fairs, and Wood's, of Hoosac, took a premium or medal at the Paris 

 Exposition, and yet this does not prove that this machine is really and practically 

 best, as different committees make different decisions. There has been, it is said, 

 over one hundred patents granted at our Patent Office at Washington, touching the 

 mower and reaper. The Yankees make the best machine in the world, and over 

 80,000 were made in the United States in 186G. 



Four machines were on exhibition. The Granite State, Kniffin Mower, Wood's 

 Mower, and the Clipper Mowing Machine, all performing their work well. Each 

 owner thinks his own machine is the best one extant. And well it is so. If all the 

 merit lay in one inventor's machine, competition would cease and there would be 

 less research, and the whole community would not be as well served as now, where 

 there are so many competitors in the field "striving for the mastery." 



The Clipper is a well working machine, and is used in preference to any other by 

 many farmers. So we can truly say of Kniffin's mower. It has its friends, who 

 t'link there is none like it. Its grearing is not as heavy, and its draft is lighter. 

 Wood's mower is well known in this community, and is generally liked. It performs 

 well its work. The Granite State has its warm friends among us, and is probably 

 one of the best working machines. All the machines now manufactured seem to be 

 p )rfect, yet we are prepared for still greater improvements. In this inventive age, 

 mechanical ingenuity is on the stretch to produce some new machine to cheapen la- 

 bor, and make to its possessor a fortune. And we are not surprised at any new in- 

 vention which long toil, hard study and experiments have produced. The time may 

 soon come when the present mowers, so perfect as they now appear, may be laid 

 aside, and superior ones take their place. 



Knitting Machine. — The Knitting Machine exhibited by D. A. Keys is truly a 

 great invention, performing work with dispatch, and saving ninety per cent in labor. 

 Most all the variety of garments arc knit with ease and dispatch, yet this machine 

 is rather an intruder in the family circle. 



Some fifty years ago, when there was from eight to ten children in a family, from 

 half to two-thirds girls, all seated in winter evenings before a good fire, a back log 

 and fore stick, knitting stockings for the family, the mother presiding over her fam- 

 ily of girls with authority, directing where to expand or to narrow, when to turn the 

 heel or run off the toe, taking up stitches for the younger ones — we look back with 

 much pleasure upon those scenes, and doubt whether there is more happiness and 

 health now than then, with our puny families now, that know little of practical 

 1 ibor, than with rosy cheek girls of fifty years ago. 



Plows. — The exhibition of Plows were small. It would seem that the public mind 

 generally has settled down in the conviction that the plow has been brought to its 

 highest perfection. This is not so. Mind is still at work, and greater improvements 



