No. 199.] 323 



every year. It can also be improved in form. The threshing-machine, 

 for instance, can be made to triumph still more than it has already, by 

 separating one or two hundred bushels of wheat, per day, from the 

 straw. And the horse-rake is growing, and can continue, by care, 

 science and experience, to grow still better in shape and material, and 

 is one of the modern inventions, destined, probably, as more used, to 

 be among the very greatest in profit ; because it is beneficially em- 

 ployed in harvesting an article, which, humble as hay may be in the 

 estimation of many, is yet the most valuable in New-England hus- 

 bandry, and, next to wheat and Indian corn, the most valuable in the 

 Union, outstripping, by one third, even the mammoth product of cotton. 



Reaping by machinery and horse-power, is likewise making rapid 

 progress; and by care to have the profits of it known more widely, 

 bread, the great staff of life, will yearly be made to cost less to all, 

 and especially to the toiling millions. Approximating more such 

 beneficial results, by other machines, when not done already, will, 

 ere long, be accomplished by the farmer, as their utility is demon- 

 strated, and this, however slow, he is generally to change. Let it 

 be remembered, too, that in agricultural improvements, and the 

 greater use of iron, that most faithful servant of man, and the best 

 witness, by its abundant employment, of a high civilization, must be 

 one chief agent, entering more and more into tools and implements, 

 on account of its increasing cheapness, no less than its superiority in 

 durability and strength. Let it be remembered, that coal is to be 

 another more used and improving agent, not only for warmth and 

 cookery, but to feed the all-devouring appetite for fuel of the steam- 

 engine, and for gas, more and more to light our cities j and salt, 

 another, not only for a condiment to man and stock, and the preser- 

 vation of meats, but for manure on many soils and for many plants. 

 What more may be done, likewise, by electricity, as an instrument or 

 manure in advancing vegetation, is likely to become one of the most 

 useful inquiries connected with that remarkable agent. Let it be 

 remembered, too, that all the powers of chemistry shj^ld be more 

 invoked to aid in the discoveries of new manures, as she has lately in 

 bones, turning them up, for instance, on the field of Waterloo, for 

 i'igiicultural use, rather than only, as in the anticipation of Virgil, on 

 the field of Phillippi — 



