NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



343 



GRAIN CRADLE. 



This is truly a labor-saving implement, doing work 

 in a neat manner, in good hands, and with great 

 expedition, having decided advantages over the 

 sickle, with its slow, tedious, back-aching operation. 

 The gain in despatching the harvesting of grain is 

 not merely in doing it at less expense, but often the 

 greatest advantage is in performing it in the very 

 nick of time, and thereby saving grain from a storm, 

 or standing too late. 



Frequently all the grain on the farm needs to be 

 cut at the same time, when all the help usually em- 

 ployed could not do it with the sickle, in proper 

 season ; and this saving, by expedition, in the use 

 of this valuable implement, should be taken into 

 consideration as highly important. 



Grant's and Wilcox's premium cradles are re- 

 garded as the best now in use. They are neat, light, 

 strong, and made very convenient by adjustable fin- 

 gers, so that the operator can regulate them to suit 

 himself, which renders these modern improvements 

 far superior to the old cradles, with all their parts 

 and proportions permanently fixed. 



THE CROPS. 



The Sunbury (Pa.) Gazette says, that in that 

 vicinity there will be a more abundant crop of 

 wheat, rye, oats, and grass, than for many years. 

 The potatoes, too, will yield Avell, and corn has much 

 improved. 



THE SPIRIT OF PROGRESS. 



Large as are the strides, and splendid as are the 

 triumphs of the spirit of progress in the nineteenth 

 century, she still numbci's her enemies by thousands. 

 Chinese walls and Chinese hatred to improvement 

 still hold some sway among many of our j^eople. 

 They love and would foster " the good old way!" 

 Why, in the meridiaii time of " the good old way," 

 ships required months to perform a voyage from Liv- 

 erpool to New York ; now, the winds and tides, held 

 in vassalage by the spirit of progress, waft the vessel 

 from world to world in a single fortnight ! Ey 

 " the good old way," a bark was polled and coaxed 

 from New York to Albany in twenty days ; now, the 

 superb vessel asks but ten hours to accomplish the 

 same journey ! According to " the good old way," 

 a press which could strike off a thousand newspapers 



in a night was viewed in a light but little removed 

 from the marvellous ; now, a press in the same time 

 hurls from its great u'on hands fifty thousand sheets ! 

 By " the good old way," nice old ladies, who hap- 

 pened to be blessed with ugliness and black cats, 

 were hung up or drowned as witches ; now, our nice 

 old ladies are honored only less than our handsome 

 young ladies ! Ey "the good old way," monarchs 

 were clad, by even Americans, in the light of divin- 

 ity ; and now, the Yankee 



" Would shake hands with the king upon his throne, 

 And think it kindness to his majesty." 



By " the good old way," Columbus would slumber 

 an unknown man in an unknown grave. But the 

 spirit of progress pointed his ardent eyes to another 

 world, baptized by another sea, in the far-off Hesper- 

 ides ; and that race which is the crown of humanity, 

 now swarm on the fertile soil of that new earth, to 

 chain matter to the car of civilization, illumine man- 

 kind Avith the beams of liberty, and send hoary 

 errors crumbling away in the awful shadow of re- 

 form. When you can bind the wing of the eagle 

 with a cobweb, when you can stop the world in its 

 motion by a priesth' dictum, then attempt to arrest 

 the giant of progress in his majestic career. He who 

 does attempt it before these labors have been accom- 

 plished, must only be crushed himself beneath his 

 mighty feet. — Selected. 



INDIAN CORN. 



We ventured a prediction, two weeks ago, that the 

 exports of Lidian corn during the month of June, 

 would exceed the quantity of the same article shipped 

 in the month of Juno, in the memorable year of 1847, 

 when prices ranged from eighty-eight cents to one dol- 

 lar seventeen cents per bushel. The official statement 

 of the exports for the month of June have appeared 

 in the New York shipping list, and the quantity of 

 corn exported is stated at 1,287,369 bushels, greater 

 by 550,486 bushels than was shipped in the month 

 of June, 1847, and greater, we believe, than was ever 

 shipped in any previous month. Yet great as this 

 amount is, it is but a tithe of the quantity of grain 

 imported monthly into Great Britain, to which coun- 

 try almost the entire of our exports of breadstufFs 

 tend. — Albany Argus. 



True glory consists in doing what deserves to be 

 written, writing what deserves to be read, and mak- 

 ing the world happier and better for having lived 

 in it. 



