xvi INTRODUCTION. 



In tho western States the increase was most extraordinary, the value having augmented from 

 1,923,927 to $8,707,194, or 352.5 per cent. Their total production was nearly one-half that of the 

 wlu le Union. Its increase alone was nearly thirty-nine per cent, of the whole, and nearly equalled 

 the total manufacture of the United States in 1850. The States of Ohio and Illinois, together, manu 

 factured to a greater amount than any other two States in the Union, the value amounting in the former 

 to 2,820,626, and in the latter to $2,379,362, and the increase to 405.5 and 212.2 per cent,, respect 

 ively. Iowa increased its manufacture 1,208.6 and Kentucky 755.4 per cent, over the product of 1850. 



In the southern States the aggregate was but little over one million, and the rate of increase 

 nearly thirty per cent. Virginia was the largest manufacturer, but in several there was a falling oiF 

 from the product of 1850, after excluding cotton-gins, &c., as before mentioned. 



The largest amount manufactured in any one county in 1860 was in Stark county, Ohio, in which 

 fifteen establishments produced $900,480, the larger part of which consisted of mowers and reapers, 

 and of threshing-machines and separators, in each of which three factories were employed. The next 

 largest county production in this branch was in Cook county, Illinois, which made to the value of 

 $529,000, chiefly in the city of Chicago. Of that sum, 8414,000 was the value of 4,131 reapers and 

 mowers made by a single establishment, the largest in the country. Rensselaer and Cayuga counties- 

 in New York, each produced upward of $400,000 worth of agricultural implements, and a single firm 

 in Canton, Stark county, Ohio, made reapers, mowers, and threshers to the value of $399,000. 



From the New England States there is a considerable exportation of agricultural implements to 

 the British provinces, the southern States, and other parts of the world. 



That the large rates of increase in this branch indicated by the foregoing figures are not due 

 simply to the increase of population, is shown by the fact that in Illinois, whose rate of increase with 

 so large a population is without a parallel, the increase in value of agricultural implements manu 

 factured in 1860, as compared with 1850, was 212 per cent,, while the increase of population during 

 the same period was only 101 per cent. In Ohio the population increased only 18.14 per cent., while 

 its production of agricultural implements was augmented 417.6 per cent. 



We subjoin a summary of the progress of invention in relation to a few of the more important 

 instruments of this class, having given in the preliminary report an account of the progress in 

 threshing implements. 



THE PLOUGH. Could the history of this machine, the type and pioneer of all other implements of 

 husbandry, be traced from its origin, it would probably be found that few agricultural utensils have 

 undergone greater modifications, or been more slowly improved than the plough. Originally, nothing 

 more than the rude branch of a tree, with its cleft and curved end sharpened to scratch a furrow for 

 the seed, possibly, as suggested by the ingenious Tull, in imitation of the tillage effected by swine, the 

 instrument appears at this time to have been brought as nearly to perfection as it is possible to attain. 

 The primitive plough, a &quot; mere wedge with a short beam and crooked handle,&quot; became in time fitted 

 with a movable share of wood, stone, copper, or iron, wrought to suitable shape, as we find it in the 

 hands of our Saxon ancestors. To this a rude wooden mould-board to turn the furrow was afterward 

 added, and with various improvements in shape, continued in use until near the present time. 



What was its form or efficiency in the days when Elisha was summoned from ploughing with 

 twelve yoke of oxen, to assume the mantle and functions of the Hebrew prophet, may not be quite 

 apparent, but the plough was certainly hundreds of years in reaching the imperfect state above described, 

 and was several hundred more in approximating its present improved condition. In the middle of the 

 last century the ploughs of southern Europe had been little improved, and were still destitute of a 

 coulter, as in the old Roman plough of the days of Virgil and Columella. It has received few modifica 

 tions there down to this time. Even in England, at that period, the plough was an exceedingly rude 

 and cumbersome affair compared with the best now in use. It was no uncommon thing in parts of the 

 island thirty years ago to see from three to five horses in light soils, and in heavy ones sometimes, as 

 many as seven attached to a plough, which turned about three-quarters of an acre per diem. The old 



