338 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



WHAT 



TOOLS HAVE DONE 

 AQRICUIiTURE. 



FOR 



EW farmers, perhaps, have 

 'given this matter that careful 

 thought and comparison with 

 past ages, which will enable them to 

 appreciate the immense advantage 

 we possess in the excellent tools that 

 are now used in the cultivation of 

 the soil. Tools and machines are, 

 in principle, the same. When we use an iron 

 bar to move a rock, it is gaining in one way, 

 a power which we gain in another by the use 

 of the derrick. A tool is usually more simple 

 than a machine ; it is generally used with the 

 hand, while a machine is frequently moved by 

 animal or steam power. The simpler machines 

 are often merely one or more tools, placed in 

 a frame, and acted upon by a moving power. 

 But neither the tool nor the machine has any 

 force of itself. In one case the force is in the 

 arm, in the other, in the water, the steam, 

 or the animal that turns the wheel. 



It is by a combination of different principles 

 that we gain the greatest power, as for instance, 

 in the cider mill, where the use of the lever en- 

 ables us to gain an immense power ; or the screw, 

 which is an inclined plane, winding round the 

 surface of a cylinder, or when the screw is 

 combined with the wheel and axle. 



Every farmer who has used a good hay- 

 eutter that has a revolving motion, can appre- 

 ciate its value when he contrasts it with the te- 

 dious labor of chopping hay with a hatchet, on 

 a block, or using a machine with an up and 

 down motion ; ami so in regard to nearly every 

 tool or machine he uses on the farm. 



It would be a source of pleasure and encour- 

 agement to any farmer to become more famil- 

 iar with what science and art has done for 

 him and the world, and especially within the 

 last fifty years. By science we mean this, — the 

 discovering how a good seed-sower, or mowing- 

 machine may be constructed, and by art, how 

 to manufacture the parts and put them together. 

 The first is ascertaining a truth, and the second 

 making that truth available to the world. 

 These terms, therefore, are plain terms, and 

 may be understood by all. 



In order, however, that the farmer of the 

 present day may realize the advantages which 

 he possesses over those of any former period 

 in the world's history, he must know something 

 of the condition of those who have preceded 



him. Let us briefly refer to a few plain facts : 

 Adam Smith, in his great work, "The 

 Wealth of Nations," says. The property which 

 every man has in his own labor, as it is the 

 original foundation of all other property, so it 

 is the most sacred and inviolable. The patri- 

 mony of a poor man lies in the strength and 

 dexterity of his hands ; and to hinder him from 

 employing this strength and dexterity in what 

 manner he thinks proper, without injury to his 

 neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred 

 property." 



A vast number of the cultivators of the soil 

 in Europe, as well as in other parts of the 

 world, and among them our English ancestry, 

 not only were obliged to work without the aid 

 of machines, and with heavy, clumsy and awk- 

 ward tools, but were continually plundered 

 and oppressed by the government and the land- 

 holders. 



Before the great charter. King Henry used 

 to seize upon whatever suited his pleasure, — 

 horses, implements, food, any thing that pre- 

 sented itself in the shape of accumulated labor. 

 The husbandry was so imperfect that an un- 

 favorable season for crops was followed by 

 famine. When the ground was too hard, the 

 seed could not be sown for want of the suffi- 

 cient machine-power of plow and harrow ; and 

 when they got a crop, it was thrashed out by 

 cattle at a ruinous loss. 



Education was so low, and the principles 

 and relations of things so little understood, 

 that there was the most decided hostility to the 

 introduction of machinery upon the farm or in 

 the work shops. Even as late as 1830, the 

 newspapers of England gave accounts of the 

 desti'uction of machinery by her agricultural 

 laborers. It was stated that in one district a 

 band of men destroyed all the machinery of 

 many farms, down even to the common drills. 

 They could not make up their minds as to the 

 propriety of destroying a horse-churn, and 

 therefore, that machine was passed over. 



Historians state that in the reigns of Henry 

 IV. and V. of England, there was plenty of 

 labor to be performed, but the tools were so 

 bad, and the want of agricultural knowledge 

 so universal, that the land was never half culti- 

 vated, and therefore all classes were poorly off. 

 They had little produce to exchange for manu- 

 factures, and in consequence the laborer was 

 badly clothed, badly lodged, and had a very 



