MECHANIC ARTS AND FARM LMPLEMENTS. 



Among tlie forces resulting in American prosperity, none hiive been 

 more active than the inventive genius of our people. 



Thi-ough all history, agriculture has been the criterion of civiliza- 

 tion ; and it is a truism equally important, that the first gleam of 

 advancement in the mechanic arts has shone upon the pathway of 

 the farmer, and ever afterwards the status of mechanical improve- 

 ments is nowhere so plainly recordt d as in the appliances for increas- 

 ing the etiectivencss of agricaltural labor. The inference naturiilly 

 suggested then, is, that Americans, the most ingenious of people, 

 have distanced other nations in the production of implements devised 

 lor the exclusive use of the farmer. And the surmise is well found 

 ed, for with no other nation has agiiculture received so large a share 

 of the attention of inventors ; no where else has there been brought 

 into existence sucli a multiplicity of agricultural implements, and no 

 where have they been of such importance, or have the changes 

 wrought by their presence acquired such magnitude. 



We have no space to devote to an enumeration of these innovations, 

 or to eulogize on the importance to farmer and nation, of improved 

 implements of cultivation. But the bare mention of the mower, tlie 

 cotton gin, and the wonderful self-raking-and-binding reaper, will 

 serve to bring before the mind a picture far more brilliant than pen 

 can sketch. 



Tiie study of a, people's agricultural machinery is not only of 

 absorbinir interest in itself, but is of great value as well ; for it forms 

 the true exponent of agricultural prosperity, on which all advance- 

 ment depends. When the peculiarities of American farminir arc 

 considered, the success that has always attended it, is almost enig- 

 matical, and can be satisfactorily accoiuited for in but one manner. 

 Our farmers give less heed to the details of their calling than do those 

 of Europe's gi'eat powers. With us agricultural education is in its 

 infancy, while across the Atlantic, farmers, for a hundred years, 

 have had access to distinct professional schools adapted to their re- 

 quirements, and conducted in their interests ; and with them uo vast 



