MR. FAY S ADDRESS. 7 



sufficient encouragement were given, persons could be found in 

 every community to work them on their own account, going from 

 farm to farm as a regular business, profitable to all parties. This 

 is practiced to a very considerable extent among the small farmers 

 in England. It is not unusual there to see a travelling steam en- 

 gine on wheels, going through an extensive district, threshing wheat 

 and performing other work which does not occur often enough to 

 make it an object for the farmer to purchase such expensive ma- 

 chinery for his own use. Mowing machines have been worked in 

 this way during the past season in some of the neighboring states, 

 and have been found a very great saving of time and labor. What 

 a blessing a steam engine, force-pump and a few hundred feet of 

 leading hose, would have been to many farmers during the late 

 drought for the purposes of irrigation, where the land was so situ- 

 ated as it respects water to admit of its being done. Many crops 

 could thus have been saved which the drought destroyed, and 

 others rendered sufficiently more abundant to have paid the cost 

 of its use. 



I would most earnestly impress upon the Society, the importance 

 of increasing the amount and number of prizes for implements, with 

 a view of encouraging their exhibition at our Shows. Farmers can 

 only learn in this way how much there is within their reach, to 

 enable them to carry on their operations at the least cost. Books 

 and newspapers describe the principle of a machine well enough, 

 but it requires to be seen, and if possible put to work, to convey a 

 just idea of its value and importance. Nothing that I have ever 

 seen surprised me so much or gave me greater pleasure than the 

 implement department at the English agricultural shows,* out-num- 



*At Gloucester Koyal Agricultural Show, 1833, the number of implements exhib- 

 ited, was 1803 ; number of exhibitors, 121 ; total declared value of, $120,000 ; 

 Average cost to purchase, $66. 



At Lincoln this year, the number was about 3000. A comparison of the last four 

 years of the number of implements exhibited at the lloyal Agricultural Society 

 Shows with the corresponding year of 1 840, will convey a correct idea of the great 

 attention this subject is exciting in the best cultivated country in the world. 



1840. No. of implements exhibited, 361850. No. of implements exhibited, 1197 



1841. " " " 312,1851. None this year. - 



1842. " " " 455,1852. No. of implements exhibited, 1722 



1843. " " " 5081853. " " " 1803 



1844. " " " 948|l854. " " " 3000 

 The prizes awarded for agricultural implements 1853, amounted to 40 per cent. 



of the total awards for that year. The prizes awarded for agricultural implements 

 in Massachusetts, were only 11-4 per ceat. of the total awards for the same year. 



