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REPORT ON MOWING MACHINES. 



The Committee appointed to witness the trial of Mowing Ma- 

 chines, entered in this comitj, for the premium of six hundred 

 dollars, offered bj the " State Society for the Promotion of Agri- 

 culture," report : 



That inasmuch as it was found impracticable to carry out the 

 design of the State Society completely, and having no opinions to 

 give affecting the award of the premium, propose to offer simj)ly 

 a statement of their action in the premises. An exhibition for 

 the trial was duly advertised, and held in Dedham, on a track of 

 about ten acres ; at which nine machines were operated. A 

 large concourse of citizens were present to witness the exhibition, 

 who seemed to take a lively interest in the experiment of a ma- 

 chine so powerful, and heretofore so rare in New England. An 

 account of that exhibition, by one of the Committee, was publish- 

 ed in a county paper, the Dedham Gazette, which was supposed 

 to give substantially the views of the Committee at the time, a 

 portion of which, as containing a record of the doings of the Soci- 

 ety, is annexed to the Report of the Committee on Agricultural 

 Implements, which follows. 



MARSHALL P. WILDER, Chairman. 



REPORT ON AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 



The Committee on Agricultural Implements have to report 

 nothing new as on exhibition at the Cattle Show, in this depart- 

 ment, although there were quite a number of specimens of those 

 long-famiUar implements — the most essential in the work of Agri- 

 culture — which serve to illustrate the improvement and progress 

 made in this branch of the science. 



The Committee, in former reports, have remarked on the pecu- 

 liarities of our condition, in New England, in regard to Agricul- 

 tural Implements, as contrasted with the Middle and Western 

 States. Our uneven and rocky soil, as a general characteristic, 

 forbids the use of many of those labor-saving machines, which in- 

 ventive genius is ever ready to ci-eate to the demand of necessity 



