21 



every reason to believe that the machines now in use will 

 be simplified and furnished at smaller cost and employed 

 with less expenditure of power, and that others will be 

 invented that shall shorten many processes and lighten 

 the burden and enlarge the products of toil. 



On the prnries of tlie west, mowing and reaping ma- 

 chines are now indispensable, and owing to the high price 

 of labor will be brought into use here. This will compel 

 a better cultivation of the soil, its more thorough plough- 

 ing and pulverization and rolling, which are great bene- 

 fits in themselves, while they render the use of machines 

 easier. Add to these, corn-droppers and shellers, seed- 

 sowers, sub-soil ploughs, horse-hoes, improved harrows 

 and rakes, threshers and winnowers, and perhaps one of 

 these days steam threshers and ploughs, and we have fa- 

 cilities for saving labor that will more than balance the 

 high price of hand-labor by enabling the farmer to dis- 

 pense Avith a large portion of it. These and similar 

 things are producing a revolution in farming, that will 

 render it more attractive and more productive. By their 

 means we shall be able to cultivate more land with less 

 labor and expense than at present, or to cultivate the 

 same amount of land better, and with a corresponding 

 augmentation of productions. This conviction has taken 

 strong hold of the minds of the best farmers of Europe, 

 who receive with enthusiasm and employ to great advan- 

 tage the inventions of our countrymen in this department. 

 We ought not to be behind them in enterprise. 



We may add to these the reclaiming of meadows, 

 deeper ploughing and drainage, less dependence on poor 

 pastures and more green soiling, more careful selection of 

 farm stock, more roots for fodder, good barn cellars, the 

 more general use of guano, lime, bones, salt and other 

 concentrated manures solid and liquid, greater economy 

 in the application of manures, more frequent taking up 



