that surplus of food beyond his own wants which he raises for 

 the new industry, he improves his own condition, and increases 

 the productiveness of his own labor by better implements. 

 He becomes able to devote himself exclusively to the raising 

 of crops, and leaves to the mechanic and manufacturer to do 

 for him, what they are able to do with greater skill, and at less 

 cost. The progress of agriculture, until within a short period 

 of time, has been the effect almost exclusively of improved 

 implements and, consequently, has directly depended upon the 

 progress of mechanical art. Until the mechanic has fashioned 

 the tools with which the farmer can clear of its stubborn and 

 luxuriant growths, the soil best fitted for him, the mould of 

 the valley and the plain, he is compelled to work on the 

 poorest land, because least obstructed by vegetation. The 

 development of the capabilities of the soil by culture at in- 

 creasing depths, is measured by the difference between the 

 sharpened stick of the farmer drawn through the earth and 

 leaving a shallow scratch one or two inches deep, and the iron 

 plough of the mechanic exhibited here to-day, which gouges 

 a furrow to the depth of eight inches or stirs to the depth of 

 fifteen inches, the subsoil. A deeper culture is equal to a 

 larger extension of arable surface. Under the effects of such 

 mechanical improvements, the globe of agriculture dilates with 

 multiplied dimensions. From the sickle to the reaping and 

 mowing m.achine, from the trampling oxen and the flail to the 

 threshing machine, from the unaided palm of the sower to the 

 drilling machine, from the slow-picking fingers of the slave to 

 the Cotton-gin, from the hand-hoe to the horse-hoe and hoe- 

 ing machine, from the hand-rake to the horse-rake, from the 

 basket borne upon the head, or the back of an animal, or the 

 market- wagon, to the railroad train drawn by the locomotive 

 engine, we have similar gradations of mechanical progress fol- " 

 lowed by the enhanced productiveness of the farmer's labor. 

 But for these improved implements, most of which, in their 

 American manufacture, supply a world-wide demand, the crops 

 of Europe and America could not be planted, raised, gathered 



