920 Transactions of the A^ierican Institute. 



evolved by the costly experience is, for the most part, monopolized 

 by individuals or manufacturing concerns, instead of being diflused 

 within the reach of subsequent projectors. No farmer could be 

 induced to employ one of the " horse-killing" mowing machines 

 of a few years ago, whose Aveight and unwieldiness might have 

 been reduced at the outset, had their makers understood to an 

 equal degree the nature of the work to be done, and the proper 

 proportion of parts required to perform it, but which, as it was, 

 were only brought into their present efficient shape by the unnum- 

 bered experiments of years of trial; and should a projector, inex- 

 perienced in their manufacture, devise an essentially new harvester 

 to-day, he would find that the practical or mechanical knowledge 

 required to properly proportion its parts and fit it for operation, 

 could be found only in the workshops of rival manufacturers, and 

 in a large majority of cases wholly beyond his reach, would it not 

 be better for him, and better for the country, if he could apply at 

 once to an engineer wholly conversant with the minutiae of farm 

 work? And why, in this age of progress, should the inventor of 

 an agricultural machine be thrown helpless and unguided upon 

 his own resources, when the projector of a steam engine, a ship, or 

 u spinning machine, can find men at his hand fully qualified to fit 

 and proportion his invention for use? 



One of the greatest of the industrial demands of the Southern 

 portion of our country is a practical machine for picking cotton — 

 a machine which we believe will some day or other be brought 

 into effective form — and which, had it been produced ten years ago, 

 would in all probability so modified the industrial interests of 

 that section, as to have abolished the existing cause of the feeling 

 that culminated in civil war, and of which the germ may exist in 

 plans now in existence. For instance, in 1859, if we remember 

 rightly, a machine was patented, by which it was designed to draw 

 the bolls from the phmts by suction; and although the apparatus, 

 as set forth by the inventor, would probably require more time to 

 pick the cotton than would be required by hand, yet it is easy to 

 conceive that a machine acting on this principle njight be made to 

 draw the cotton from the plant with very great rapidity; but how 

 many engineers possess that combination of technical skill and 

 knowledge of cotton culture, which would enable them to state the 

 power required to detach the bolls, the consequent consumption 

 of fuel, and the weight and proportions of the machinery required 

 to carry the apparatus into practical operation? It may be men- 



