6 MR. fay's address. 



ligent skill, will never be a want in this country. Our farms have 

 ceased to be a favorite scene of labor to our young men, because 

 the work to be performed is mere drudgery, without pleasure or 

 excitement to the mind, but full of weariness to the body. If, how- 

 ever, you will bring to the farm the steam engine or horse power, 

 and the various implements they put in motion, our children will 

 gladly remain upon the homesteads they now desert for the factory, 

 the machine shop and the railroad. He who delves and digs the 

 earth from morning until night, has little time and less inclination 

 for thought — he becomes a mere toil-worn machine at last ; but if 

 he is connected with an implement, the working of which he is to 

 guide and direct, his position is completely changed ; he is then a 

 master over a slave, a truly soulless slave, that labors without sweat 

 to do his bidding. 



There is another labor-saving implement connected with the hay 

 crop, quite as important to the farmer as the mowing machine ; this 

 is the hay-maker. It has been long known and universally used in 

 England, and is now coming into notice in this country, much sim- 

 plified in its construction and in consequence much cheaper in 

 price. It is easily worked by a single horse, and will save the 

 labor of five or six men. This implement with the mower and the 

 horse rake will make the hay harvest an easy and comparatively 

 inexpensive task, saving the cost of all three of them on some 

 farms in this county in two or three years. 



But in recommendmg the adoption of these and other labor-saving 

 implements, I may be told that they are expensive, and will not 

 therefore save labor enough to make it an object to purchase them, 

 except upon very large farms ; that a farmer, for example, who cuts 

 one hundred tons of hay may save by their use, but for one who 

 cuts only twenty or thirty, the outlay would be out of proportion to 

 the saving to be accomplished. This objection is certainly a sqv'i- 

 ous one, though capable of being obviated in most cases. Massa- 

 chusetts is a land of small farmers, and we must therefore resort to 

 the principle of association, so well known and practiced upon for 

 various other purposes, to accomplish what is beyond 'our individual 

 means. We must combine together in the purchase of expensive 

 agricultural implements, and arrange for their use in a way to se- 

 cure perfect fairness and equality. This is only one of the many 

 ways by which the cost of them may be very much reduced. If 



